


Elective

by OriginalCeenote



Category: Archie Comics
Genre: Bad Judgment, Big/Big, Drunken behavior, Ethel is an Art Model, Exhibitionism (sort of), F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Hot Topic shopping, Jello shots, Mild Smut in later chapters, Moose gets dumped by Midge AGAIN, Nudity, a LIFE ART MODEL, alcohol consumption, is that any surprise, that means she's naked, the author is a horrible person, underdog secondary characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Away from the shelter of his high school alma mater, Moose tries to find himself. He finds an old classmate along the way, and things change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Moose’s alarm clock nagged him from dreams of his touchdown against Midvale High with the obnoxious blare of the campus radio station. He groaned, rolled over and slapped the snooze button in irritation. “Shit.” He cursed himself for signing up for an eight o’clock class, but he needed to get his general ed out of the way.

As soon as he rolled upright and planted his feet on the chilly dorm floor, his skull reminded him why going out to Thirsty Thursday was a bad idea. He groaned again, wondering who invited the jackhammering gnomes into his head. He leaned his head into his palms.

His roomie showed him no sympathy. Ambrose’s dorm key crunched into the lock and he kicked open the door, a half-eaten donut clamped in his teeth while he juggled a Starbucks cup and his Jansport backpack. “Ooh!” Moose grunted.

“Thirsty Thursday, huh?”

“Get bent.”

“I’ve got Tylenol in the drawer. Go take a shower. Ya kinda look like hell.”

“How long have you been up?” Moose’s blue eyes were drowsy slits.

“I went for a jog. Got up at dawn.” Moose glared at him as he stretched and lumbered to his feet.

The lure of college night life was strong for Moose, as was the freedom of being away from home.

Being single again might have motivated him the night before, even if he didn’t choose it. Midge proved him wrong that dating for all four years of high school cemented their status as inseparable. Two months into his first semester at state, she texted him that they wanted “different things.” He stared numbly down at his smartphone, convinced that he wasn’t seeing the tiny words. He hit the “Call” button and wandered outside, away from the clamor of the frat house. He abandoned his half-empty Solo cup and plunked himself down on the short flight of steps. It rang four times, each tone feeding the knot in his gut. “C’mon,” he muttered, ignoring the party guests that filed past him, brushing against him as though he wasn’t there.

“Hey.” Midge’s voice was familiar but wary.

“What do you mean, ‘different things?’”

“Moose,” she hedged.

“No. Wait. When you say that, what are you saying? Are you seeing someone else?” He heard her sigh and low tsk of frustration, and he felt a hot flush swamp him. Moose combed his fingers through the hair at his nape and continued. “Seriously, Midge?”

“I’m not seeing anyone else yet,” she insisted.

“Yet?” She might as well have kicked him in the balls. “So you want to date someone else?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what you meant.”

“Moose, I’m sorry.”

“No,” he blurted, voice choked with confusion and barely checked anger. He pushed the “End” button on the call and let his phone drop from limp fingers onto the step under his feet. He was shaking. The phone chirped at him with another text, but he wasn’t ready for it yet.

A handful of his new acquaintances stopped him as he walked back into the house, but he waved them away and discarded his cup, dumping its contents into the sink first. He lost his taste for the beer and the blaring music, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, Moose Mason needed to be alone.

*

Moose gathered up his towel and shower gel while Ambrose made short work of his bagel, booting up his PC. “Did you study for that econ mid-term?”

“Kind of,” Moose muttered. He’d skimmed the chapters and had taken haphazard notes. It wasn’t his favorite class. Moose was interested in doing well enough to “get by” and to maintain a good enough GPA so he could play football. Unlike his roomie, Ambrose, who was a diligent student who wanted to be the next Stephen King, Moose still felt the same insecurities in academic settings, to an extent giving up before he tried. The old voices kept coming back, whispering to him that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough.

Midge’s rejection hammered his assumptions into his consciousness. He’d lost the loudest voice in his cheering section. He dug into his trunk for a tee shirt that wasn’t too wrinkled, settling on his old, faded Quicksilver one that had a tiny bleach stain from his first attempt at doing his own laundry. His mother put her foot down at the enormous, straining sack of dirty clothes that he’d hauled through the front door on his first trip home. Moose laid out his clothes and managed to find two matching socks while Ambrose printed out his homework and cleaned out his backpack, excavating a week’s worth of old quizzes and snack wrappers.

Moose was lucky enough to get a decent roommate, and Ambrose was a welcome discovery on his arrival at the dormitory, making it seem smaller and less imposing. Once they introduced themselves and found out that they were alumni from Riverdale Elementary, Moose’s transition into college life became easier. Moose didn’t recognize him initially; Ambrose clarified that his parents had moved out of the area before middle school. Ambrose was active but not particularly athletic. His personality was mellow and wisecracking, and he had a fantastic imagination. He enjoyed things that Moose considered slightly nerdy, and he had member accounts on a lot of fanfiction Web sites that he wasn’t familiar with, but Moose wouldn’t hold it against him.

Moose’s head throbbed less after ten minutes under the steaming water. He combed a squirt of gel through his brutally short blond hair and left the tiny dorm room reeking of Old Spice. Moose shoved his meal card and keys into his pocket, cursing under his breath when he saw the time. “Catch you later,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Yep. Later, bro.”

The line into the dining hall was a mile long; Moose didn’t stand a chance of getting to class on time. His stomach picked that moment to complain loudly up at him. Moose considered his options as me made his way toward Basic English Comp. There was a coffee stand outside the hall that had decent bagels. It would have to do.

*

Ethel did a double take at the tall, beefy blond in a light aqua shirt and black Dockers that hurried past her. “Moose?” she murmured incredulously. Was that him? It was hard to tell from the back, but she thought she recognized his lumbering stride and haircut. The stranger had the same ears, too, that stuck out like jug handles. Ethel was a people watcher, a habit spawned from spending a lot of time alone. She turned back toward the dining hall, annoyed at the long line for breakfast. She wanted coffee more than anything else; her calculus mid-term promised to be a bear. Ethel managed a meager scholarship, and her parents sent her a monthly allowance, but they made it clear that she would need to come up with whatever was left of her expenses on her own. She had to keep her grades up if she wanted to maintain her financial aid.

Her social life hadn’t changed much since she graduated from Riverdale. She spent her holidays and random weekends at home and usually called Betty and Nancy for movie dates or trips to Pop’s. Veronica was seldom home for the weekend, and what time she spent there was usually monopolized by Archie. Ethel’s roommate didn’t make much of an effort to reach out to her, and Melody had little in common with her, anyway. She wasn’t certain how the residence administrator matched them up when she reserved her dorm for the year. Mel was – in the nicest way Ethel could possibly describe – a ditz. Nice enough, but just… goofy. Girl didn’t have a clue. Ethel’s first indication that they weren’t that compatible should have been the overwhelming flurry of pink on one side of the room when she dragged her duffle and trunk inside.

Unicorns. My Little Pony dolls and knick-knacks. A pink feathered dream catcher in the window. A framed Pussycat Dolls poster hanging over her bed. The spread, throw pillows, Melody’s shower caddy, towels, sheets, backpack, and trunk were all hot pink. Melody’s desk hosted a pink iPad and iPod Nano, a stack of leopard-printed notebooks, and a framed photo of her with two other girls, all dressed in bizarre-looking cat costumes with ears and tails. “Ooo-kay,” Ethel muttered under her breath.

“Hey, roomie!” Melody squealed, and Ethel just had time to set down her duffle before she was enveloped in a perfumed hug. “I finally get to meet you! Aren’t you stoked? Isn’t this awesome?”

“You’re Melody?”

“Melody Valentine,” she clarified. “You can call me Mel.”

“Cool. I’m Ethel.”

“Wow! That’s my grandma’s name,” she told her cheerfully. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Uh…I dunno. I like a lot of stuff, I guess.”

“Take your pick! Let’s make a playlist!” The bubbly platinum blonde bustled around the room, fiddling with her speakers. “Music’s my thing. I’m a drummer in a band!” She whipped out a pair drumsticks – glittering, pink drumsticks, no less – and tossed one up in the air with a little twirl. “I’m so glad you’re here, we’re gonna have so much fun!”

That remained to be seen, Ethel supposed. She liked Melody well enough, but they just didn’t have anything in common. Melody was a night owl, and she brought a never-ending stream of visitors, mostly male, into their dorm. Ethel often escaped to the computer lab for something resembling peace and quiet. Once in a while, though, Mel could be fun. Sometimes she brought ingredients for s’mores and they would wander into the dormitory kitchen to nuke the marshmallows just until they were gooey. Melody would grouse about boy problems while Ethel listened, rapt.

“I don’t know if he’s going to call.”

“So, call him,” Ethel reasoned.

“It doesn’t work that way!” Melody scolded, as though Ethel were three. “He’s supposed to call. That way I know he’s into me. If I have to call him, it doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it count? Did he give you his number?”

“He wrote it on my hand at the club,” Melody qualified. “He wanted to write it on my boob.”

“Right,” Ethel shrugged. That indicated interest, she supposed. She glanced down at her own meager assets briefly and sighed. No one would accuse Ethel Muggs of trying to attract a man with anything other than her sterling wit and sparkling personality. At least, not to her way of thinking. Melody Valentine was a seventies pinup come to life. Her skin was peachy and perfect. Her body was illegal, or should have been, and she raided Hot Topic on a monthly basis. Ethel avoided conversations between them that started with “Does this make my butt look big?” Melody had big, blue puppy dog eyes and a loopy smile that made her want to pat the blonde on the head.

Melody was a music major, no surprise. She was constantly humming, and when she spoke, she always seemed to be singing the words, a habit that took some getting used to for Ethel. Melody’s bookshelves were stuffed full of sheet music, sharing space with her high school year book and a handful of photo albums. As far as Ethel could tell, Melody had truly enjoyed high school, and she was often nostalgic.  
Ethel had despised it.

One thing that she appreciated about campus life was the anonymity. She could start over, where no one knew her as “Big Ethel.” The state college campus was diverse and large, and she enjoyed how she managed to get lost in the crowd. Ethel wasn’t the skinniest or tallest person she saw walking around for a change, which was refreshing. No one made disparaging remarks about her teeth. Braces had corrected the worst of her overbite by senior year, but she still had a noticeable gap. Ethel decided it gave her face character, if nothing else. Who said she had to be perfect? To her own disparaging way of thinking, perfect teeth wouldn’t put her in league with her roommate, anyway.

In contrast to Melody’s side of the room, Ethel’s was sparsely decorated and study in dark fabrics and clean lines. She didn’t like clutter. While Melody’s bed was populated with stuffed animals, Ethel had a couple of framed Escher prints and an Ansel Adams calendar hanging on the wall. A dark blue damask bedspread dressed her bed, and a framed photo of Ethel, Betty and Nancy taken at the beach sat on her desk next to her laptop. Ethel left most of her knick-knacks at home, for the simple reason that she didn’t know who could come through the dorm in any given day, and she didn’t want any of her belongings taken.

Ethel made her way into the dining hall and let the desk attendant scan her meal card. She selected a bagel and cream cheese, filling her mug with bland, but thankfully, hot coffee. She sugared it liberally and found herself a table, alone, in the back of the cafeteria. Ethel thumbed through her calculus notes, etching the formulas in her memory. Ethel Muggs was a bright girl, but she despised math. She looked forward to spring semester and the chance to take an elective or two.

She checked her day planner. Calculus mid-term. Computer lab. Sociology class. English mid-term. She scanned down to the last item she had penciled in. “Shoot,” she hissed.  
Work. Life Art Drawing I.

She’d forgotten that she started work that day. Ethel wolfed down her food and transferred her coffee into a to-go cup with a lid, tossing the dishes into the metal carousel by the exit. Butterflies clamored in her stomach.

When Ethel perused the job boards the week before, she kept her options open. All of the spots working in the library filled up fast, and it was just as difficult to score a job in the campus bookstore or in the dining hall. Ethel was running out of options, and she needed something part-time to supplement her tiny allowance. Text books weren’t cheap, and she babied them out of necessity, no longer making notes in the margins like she had in high school. If she wanted to sell them back, they needed to be in pristine, mint shape.

A few ads wanted tutors or typists, but she needed more regular hours than that. There were a few listings that looked like scams. Several jobs were just volunteer internships. Ethel had a few hundred hours under her belt of volunteering as a candy striper at Riverdale General, but working for free wasn’t an option now.

A small, neon orange index card caught her eye. She tugged out the thumb tack and removed the card from the bulletin board. “Hm.”

_Life Art Class Needs a Model. MWF, 10AM-12PM. Min. starting wage. Must be open-minded, cannot be shy. Apply at Hurley Hall School of the Arts office before Oct. 5th._ Ethel tucked the little card into her purse and headed to the east end of campus, quickening her steps before she changed her mind.

The woman in the personnel office looked like an artsy type. She wore lots of jewelry made from glass beads and natural stones. Her long hair was a champagne-tinged auburn and reached down to her waist. She eyed Ethel appreciatively. “Are you here about the modeling job?” she inquired before Ethel could state her purpose. It took her by surprise. Ethel fished in her pocketbook and withdrew the card.

“Um, yeah. I am. So, it’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday?”

“Do those hours work for you?”

“Sure. I can manage it okay.”

“You’d be a great subject. How tall are you?”

“Five-ten.”

“Lucky girl. You’re very statuesque. Have you ever modeled before?”

“I wish… uh, not… really. I’m interested in something part-time while I’m going to school.”

“That’s fine. This is the application. Try to have it back by noon today. We’re going to be interviewing candidates tomorrow.”

“Great.” Ethel took the proffered application and tucked it into her homework folder.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem a little bashful,” the woman told her. She smiled engagingly, and Ethel felt even more awkward.

“No, just… I’m pretty laid-back.”

“All right. And before we go any further, just so you know, life art drawing usually includes nude models. We offer the job to people with different body types. It keeps things interesting to have different subjects, so the class can stay challenged.” Ethel’s mouth went dry.

“Wow. Okay. Cool. So, by noon?”

“Noon.” She stood up and extended her hand, and Ethel noticed they were of a height. “Call me Greta.” Ethel peered down at the name plaque on her desk as she shook her hand.

“Greta Grundy?”

“Uh-huh.” Her face was long and narrow, with a distinctive, prominent nose.

“Do you have any family from Riverdale?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I come from a family of teachers. My sister, Geraldine, works as an English and history teacher at that high school.” Ethel’s face lit up.

“She was my favorite!” Greta clapped her hands.

“Small world. She must have done right by you if you’ve made it here.”

“She was the best teacher in the world. I miss her.”

“Me, too. We haven’t visited in a while. Ethel, it was nice to meet you.” They shook hands again, and Ethel hurried to her next class.

She completed her application, and her interview was brief. Ethel met two of the art professors whose classes she would pose for, and their demeanor put her at ease.

“So, you’ve never modeled before?”

“No. Does that matter?”

“Not at all. How good are you at sitting still?”

“I think I can manage.”

“Plan on being able to hold a pose for at least a half an hour to an hour. You have nice, clean lines.” The compliment struck Ethel as peculiar. “You’ll be a fun subject to draw. When you show up for class, bring a little robe or something that you can pull on between sketches. We try to keep the room warm, but you might still get a draft.” Ethel broke out in goosebumps.

“Right.”

“See you next week!” Ethel felt euphoric, practically floating out of the office into the afternoon sunshine. She had a job.

She was terrified.

*

Moose struggled through his econ exam, breaking out into a queasy sweat. He regretted the half dozen or so Keystones from the night before, and he craved a bottle of water. The answers seemed to blur on the page. He checked the majority of the choices “true” and tried to sound like he knew what he was doing on the three essay questions. As long as he didn’t leave behind a blank page, he had a chance, Moose figured. He scrawled out a somewhat feasible description of supply and demand as the clock over the door ticked too slowly.

“Time,” his professor barked. Moose scribbled his name at the top of the page and hastily zipped up his backpack. He added his test paper to the stack, willing his answers to be correct. “See you Wednesday,” his professor promised with a curt salute. Moose nodded and took his leave, merging with the flow of students in the corridor.

It was odd to feel so invisible and unremarkable. Moose had football practice that afternoon, and he still ate, breathed, slept and lived the sport, but it was new to him not to be the best athlete at his school anymore. Being a freshman again left him at the bottom of the food chain. Practice drills were brutal. He ran twice as much, lifted twice as often, and his scrimmages on the field left him one burning mass of aches and pains, but it was worth it. Moose wanted it badly, and he needed to make the grade in the classroom. There was no room for failure.

Dilton had helped him with his online registration before he left for MIT. “You need at least one cake class. General ed’s important, but take at least one class that you know you can pass, something that qualifies as ‘enrichment.’”

“Like what?”

“How about art?” Moose scoffed.

“Gimme a break. Like I’m really gonna take an art class.”

“Might be plenty of cute girls,” Dilton reasoned. “You wouldn’t have to study. Just weekly projects and showing up to class every day. You might actually learn how to draw.”

Moose considered it. There were three sessions of Life Art Drawing I that fall. He could ease it into his twelve units, somewhere. Moose clicked on the first link, then “Add to Cart.” There was no turning back. He was officially a college freshman, full-time. His mom was proud, but his dad raised an eyebrow at his choice of elective.

*

What surprised him was how expensive the materials were for the class. The only text was “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” but the list of required stuff was a mile long. Moose spent a clueless half hour, browsing the choices of graphic pens, charcoals, pastel crayons and pencils, not knowing the difference between a .5 or .005 marker. His wallet winced at the cost of the Windsor newsprint sketch pad.

When he entered the classroom on the first day, he was surprised by the eclectic group that greeted him. Two-thirds of the class was female, as Dilton had guessed, but most of them were older women close to retirement. Moose nodded toward a couple of his teammates, figuring they had the same game plan of taking one “cake” class that semester. He pulled up a stool and took up the easel beside his friend Stan, and Moose began to set up his sketch pad.

“What’s up.”

“Time for some enrichment,” Moose quipped.

“My mind feels broader,” Stan deadpanned. “And we get to see boobies,” he muttered. Moose snickered.

His first week of class was unremarkable. Their professor showed them slides of stone statues to practice with using soft pencil. Moose effort to reproduce “The Thinker” on his eighteen-by-twenty-four pad was a little rusty. When he listened to the lectures on negative space and composition, he was lost. He got used to blocking in his figures, but when it came time to add detail, he grew discouraged.

Two more weeks of class found him more comfortable. They did ten and thirty-second speed drills to practice capturing the figure quickly to prepare them for working with a live model. Moose’s attempts still didn’t look like much to him. He felt uneasy whenever his professor materialized by his elbow.

“Think about your angle and your light source. Don’t just draw that hand to look the way you think a hand is supposed to look. Draw it the way you see it.”

“I’m trying.”

“If you look closely, there’s more space between those fingers. Foreshorten that wrist. It’s turned away from you.” Moose still had no clue what “foreshortening” meant. He stifled grumbles as he erased the hand and started again. The slide images of statues were beginning to bore him. He didn’t feel like drawing Michelangelo’s “David’s” junk anymore.

*

“All right. We’re going live today, folks,” Moose’s professor announced cheerfully. “Show our model some respect. Follow classroom conduct specified in the contract you signed. No disrespectful remarks, no flirting, no touching, no inappropriate requests. Make her feel welcome.” Moose continued setting up his easel and pencils, and a strange current of nervousness twisted his gut.

It was going to be strange seeing a real person nude, standing casually in the same room with him. In some of his most common nightmares, Moose dreamt of himself standing in front of the class in his underwear, unprepared for an oral exam. He couldn’t imagine someone being brave enough to take off their clothes for a group of adults and being stared at for an hour.

“Class, this is Ethel.”

“Um… hi.” Moose’s head jerked up at the sound of the familiar, shy-sounding alto. He dropped his kneaded eraser from nerveless fingers. He felt his face flush at the sight of the tall brunette in the middle of the room, shyly toying with the sash of her simple black robe. Her eyes scanned the room nervously, but she smiled and waved to the class. Moose ducked behind his sketch pad, trying to busy himself, flipping to an empty page. Stan elbowed him briefly.

“Dude… wow. She’s tall.”

“Uh-huh.” Ethel had been the tallest girl he’d graduated with. Every class picture found her standing in the back row. He risked a brief glance at her as the professor led her to the platform. Ethel’s tote holding her clothes sat beside his desk. Moose’s professor turned on a small lamp and fiddled with the angle while Ethel untied her robe.

Panic filled Moose’s chest. Shit! She was really going to do it. His mouth went dry at the sight of the panels of her robe falling open, revealing milky-fair flesh, and his heart pounded. There was something so unsettling about seeing her this way… He squeezed his eyes shut as the robe slithered to the floor.

“Go ahead and spread out on the floor. Or use the stool,” his professor suggested helpfully. Moose heard her faint, bare footsteps padding across the wooden platform as she settled in. He cracked open an eye and watched her crouch down and take a seat, barely daring to glimpse at her from around the edge of his sketch book. His hands felt clammy.

“She’s striking,” one of the women behind him remarked. “This should be fun. I like the line of her back.”

“Great profile,” her friend agreed.

Moose’s memories of who Ethel was to him came back in a rush.

He remembered cutting in front of her in line in the cafeteria. Tugging on her short pigtails at recess. Teasing her that he could see London and France when she wore a skirt to school and climbed the ladder to the slide. Ethel was always awkward and an easy target. Ethel’s friends were the pretty girls, but it hadn’t rubbed off on her or worked to her favor. Moose recalled tinny braces glinting in her mouth and knobby collarbones and elbows. At school dances, she warmed the bleachers during slow songs and mooned over Jughead, playing that hated game of trying to work up the nerve to ask him for a turn around the floor.

“Okay. So maybe we don’t get to see boobies,” Stan said under his breath.

“Dude… don’t,” Moose snapped.

“What? Just being honest.”

“Shut up,” Moose hissed. “I know her. Knock it off.”

“Got it, I got it,” Stan conceded. “Damn, she’s big.” Moose silenced him with a glare. He resigned himself to his assignment and finally risked a long, assessing look at his subject.

Ethel wore her chin-length hair back in a ponytail at the crown of her head, revealing the long line of her slender neck. She sat with her knees pulled slightly into her chest, one foot extended farther than the other. Her arms draped across her knees, hands dangling loosely, and she had her face turned slightly to the side. Moose blinked. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her body. He could see the faint outline of her ribs and the perfect, sharp pearls of her spine. Her skin was alabaster and smooth in contrast with her jet black hair. Moose focused himself on his work and began to make hesitant lines on the fresh page, attempting to capture her pose. His professor flicked the switch on the speakers to his laptop, and soft music filled the studio, quieting some of Moose’s unease.

The first pose was five minutes. Moose found himself erasing frequently, never feeling as though he was capturing the angles of his body correctly, and doubting every line he made. He felt self-conscious about it. He knew her. That made it different. It wasn’t a random stranger providing him with fodder to sketch. Ethel had pouted at him during dodgeball when he tagged her out too hard or run off with her yellow crayon during art. Ethel was the one who always sat alone at lunch and in study hall. She’d always greeted his amused stares with ones of annoyance and resignation as she hurried along on her way.

He couldn’t do her soft expression justice. There was something judgmental about recreating her look on paper. What would she think of how he sketched her long feet? Did he make her nose too prominent? He was lost in his musings when the professor called for Ethel to change poses.

“Go ahead and stretch, kiddo.” Ethel obeyed, arching her back to rid it of a kink and wiggling her toes as she extended one long, tapered leg.

“They just go on forever,” Stan murmured appreciatively. “She’s cute.”

“Dude, quit it,” Moose growled.

“I’m not hating, bro.” Stan blocked in some more shadows on his sketch. “She’s fun to draw.” Moose begged to differ. He looked at his own efforts with a jaundiced eye. His professor peered over his shoulder.

“Not too bad. You do better with a live subject, I take it?”

“Sure,” Moose allowed. “I guess.”

“This is one of your better efforts. Watch that foreshortening, and try a little more shading. You don’t want to miss out on her contours.” Moose mumbled a thank-you and turned over a new sheet with a low flap.

Ethel though thought she heard a familiar, low rumble across the room, but she ignored it in favor of choosing her next pose. She felt almost proud of herself for making it this far through the class without dying of embarrassment. She didn’t see judgment in any of the faces in the room. They weren’t critical of her small breasts or big feet. She wasn’t a supermodel or a porn star, and she didn’t have to be. Ethel warmed to her job, selecting a graceful pose, heedless of whether she was pulling her stomach in. She adjusted her hands, letting one rest just shy of her collarbones, but not obscuring her breasts, even though it was tempting.

A tiny vein throbbed in Moose’s temple and his mouth went dry again. Look at her. His eyes ate her up, consuming her taut muscles and the graceful bones of her shoulders, legs and throat. It was inevitable that he would have to look at her breasts…

… they were modest, not much bigger than powder puffs, and her nipples were taut from the slight draft in the room and a blushing shade of pink. They fascinated him, and his groin warmed with the brief, shameful impression of how they would feel in his palms. Her flat belly was blessed with an inny navel, easily captured with his two-B pencil and a little blending from his stump.

He sketched furiously, doing his best to use his time well. He wondered how she was able to sit still for so long. Moose was someone who had never been able to sit still. Classes found him fidgeting and scribbling in the margins of his notes, constantly rearranging himself at his two-small desk. But Ethel was serene and still, earning her wage and inspiring sketches that celebrated her spare, graceful physique instead of criticizing it.

Class ended too soon. His professor clapped his hands. “That’s it. Time to pack up, and I’ll see you all next week. Ethel, nice job.”

“Thanks,” she replied easily. She rotated her wrist a few times, working out a cramp. Moose scrambled to put away his pencils, cramming them into his case, but in his rush, he knocked over his easel, pitching his sketch book to the floor. Ethel’s eyes darted toward the sound, and they widened when she met his gaze.

Time stood still. Her pupils dilated and he heard her sharp intake of breath, making the little knob in her throat dip as she swallowed. She licked her lips and ducked her face away, flummoxed as to how to disappear. She glanced back up at him, and embarrassment was written across his boyish features.

“Shit,” she hissed.

“Oh, God,” he muttered. His cheeks were on fire, and he was rooted to the spot.

It was all over.

Ethel fumbled for her robe, scrambling to get into it. “Great work,” the professor informed her cheerfully. “There’s a private studio that you might be interested in checking out, Ethel. They need a model for their evening class. Smaller group, but they pay well.”

“I’d consider it,” she offered numbly. She knotted her sash in quick, sharp motions. Some of the older women in the class smiled and waved to her on their way out. Moose finished packing up his gear, still blushing furiously and feeling tingles wash over him at being spotted before he could make his escape. Ethel scooped up her tote and escaped into the back room. The door’s glass pane had been thoughtfully covered in brown postal wrap anchored with duct tape, offering her privacy as she quickly got dressed. Ethel couldn’t stop the hot flush that swept over her, and her fingers went numb with shock, making it difficult to do up the fastenings of her clothing.

What on earth was Moose Mason doing here? It was surreal. The sight of him robbed her of speech and coherent thought. There went her anonymity, she thought miserably.

She was grateful when she stepped out into an empty classroom. “See you next week,” she called out to her professor.

“Yup! Thanks again!” She darted out of the classroom, fuming with embarrassment. She was almost home-free until she heard a familiar baritone.

“Ethel?” She whipped around and found herself staring up into his curious blue eyes. The corners of his mouth were tight and he had a white-knuckle grip on the strap of his backpack. “Hey.”

“Hi. Long time, no see. I didn’t know you were going to state.” Ethel needed small talk in that moment, anything to circumvent the elephant in the room.

“It was my first choice,” he mumbled. Ethel began walking, and he fell in step beside her. She was still reeling with embarrassment, waiting for her heart to stop hammering in her chest.

“Mine, too. They have a great liberal arts program. I want to teach.”

“Really?”

“That’s my goal.”

“Wow.” She lunged to open the heavy door, but he beat her to it, holding it open. She brushed against him briefly, and her light perfume tickled his nostrils; she shivered at her brief contact with his bulk and warmth. “You were always smart.” She beamed, then blushed.

“It’s going to be more competitive. I’m going to have to work harder to be accepted into the credential program.”

“Ethel?”

“Yeah?”

“Um… so, why were you naked in there?”


	2. Reinvented

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one ever said you had to fit into the same, neat little mold you grew up in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a one-shot. Didn’t happen that way, much like Beggin’, where I didn’t want to cram over forty pages into one chapter.

Ethel fumed while she scrubbed her short hair, squeezing the apple-scented lather through slick locks. The slap of the hot spray hitting the tile was soothing, almost distracting her from the annoying memory of having to explain herself to Moose.  
It galled her that she’d had to explain anything. What she did was none of his business, was it?

“Dumb jock,” she muttered to the shower tiles. “What’s it to him, anyway, if I pose naked?”

Her reverie was broken by the sudden appearance of a shadowy outline of someone’s hand reaching around the edge of the shower curtain. Ethel’s breath caught in her throat and she lurched back in shock as the curtain was quickly whisked aside, the metal shower rings screeching across the pole. “GAAAHH!”

“I thought that was you in there!” Melody sang. Ethel grabbed her washcloth and draped it across her breasts, knocking her knees together and bending forward to shield her crotch from her roommate’s view and the harsh blast of cold air. “Talking to yourself?”

“No. Close that,” Ethel snapped.

“What’s the big deal? We sleep together every night,” Melody reminded her, shrugging. Ethel heard a few of her neighbors chuckling from the sinks and her entire body flushed with humiliation.  


“Say that a little louder, Mel, I don’t think they heard you on Mars. CLOSE THAT!”

“Aw,” Melody whined playfully, but she allowed Ethel to swat her hand from the curtain and yank it back into place. Ethel practically drowned herself under the spray as she finished rinsing her hair. “So, did I hear you right? Who else saw you naked, Ethel?”

“MELODY!!” The whole dorm would know her business in ten seconds if the blonde didn’t shut her yap.

“Are you holding out on me?”

“No, just… no. Nothing. I’m holding nothing out. Not a thing, do you hear me?” Ethel began exfoliating furiously, attacking her elbow with the loofah brush.

“Is this about your new job?” Melody sang sweetly. Ethel wondered how many years she would get in the cooler for strangling the blonde, but when she chanced a quick look around the edge of the shower curtain, she had that goofy look on her face, those big, soulful blue eyes looking bright but vacant. There was no one upstairs, Ethel mused. She’d be a monster to harm one hair on her head, wouldn’t she? Ethel fisted the shower curtain beneath her chin, giving her face a window to peek out from.

“Yes,” Ethel hissed. “It’s about my new job. But can we talk about it back in the dorm?” Melody squealed and gave a little hop that set her assets jiggling. She clapped her hands.

“Yay! Cool! We’ll get coffee, and you can tell me all about it!” Ethel watched her dart out of the showers, and she felt like she’d been had.

“Great,” she murmured. All things considered, things couldn’t get much more awkward. Moose Mason, the most celebrated athlete from her alma mater and often a ringleader of the little gang of nasty boys that used to tease her on the playground, saw her in the altogether. Feeling vulnerable was nothing new to her, but he’d made her feel… exposed.

Ethel gathered up her shower caddy and wrapped herself in her large, dark blue bath sheet, shoving her feet into her flip-flops. She tiptoed out into the hallway and back to her dorm. She almost collided with Kumi, an exchange student who transferred to Riverdale during the later part of junior year. The tiny brunette was struggling beneath a loaded laundry basket. “Ooh, sorry!” she apologized.

“S’okay.”

“Ethel, why was Melody asking who saw you naked?” Ethel’s cheeks smarted and turned screaming, beet red. She rolled her eyes and facepalmed.

“Might as well have been the whole world… just kill me now,” she sighed. Kumi giggled.

“Hey, whatever floats your boat. I don’t have anyone that gets to see me naked yet. It’s still too early for me.” Ethel was mildly shocked. Kumi was cute, petite, and had doll-like features and glossy, black, shoulder-length hair in uneven, choppy layers.

“Give it a few days,” Ethel suggested. “See you.”

“Bye, Ethel!”

Ethel keyed her way into the room, and Melody, as good as her word, held out a lidded to-go cup with a recycled brown wrap. “Okay. Dish.”

“Draft over here,” Ethel reminded her, but she gratefully accepted the coffee. The first sip was ambrosia. “Thanks,” she offered.

“So, who was he?”

“No one. No one important,” Ethel insisted.

“Must have been. You’re all worked up.”

“Mel, it’s not like that. We were in public.” Those were the wrong words. Melody’s mouth dropped open.  


“Ohmigod, you’re a stripper???”

“NO!”

“But…”

“A model, Mel, for life art drawing!” Melody’s eyes were still huge.

“Wow, that’s… wow. I don’t think I’d even have the guts to do that. Isn’t it… weird?”

“There are weirder jobs out there, kiddo.” Not much, Ethel admitted silently.

“You’re braver than me,” Melody told her. “Wow. Naked in front of other people?”

“Yup. Life art. In the flesh.”

“You don’t have that much flesh,” Melody told her. “Oops… I mean…”

“No. You’re right. I don’t.” Ethel shrugged. It wasn’t the first way, or the worst way, someone had called her skinny.

“I mean… you’re lucky, Ethel.”

“Lucky, how? Are you nuts?” Ethel pulled a face, then gave her a ragged little laugh. “You call this lucky?” She motioned to her torso. “I’m built like an ostrich. Or Sasquatch. Take your pick.”

“No!” Melody shot back. “I’d love to have your build! You’re so tall, like a model. This is the right kind of job for you. Look at your legs, they go on forever! Do you ever wear heels?”

“Sometimes. Just when I have to dress up for something.” Ethel changed into a pair of modest, light blue, boy-cut bikinis and an unpadded triangle cup bra. She’d given up trying to fool nature; Victoria’s Secret wasn’t well kept when a guy tried to cop a feel. Ethel didn’t believe in false advertising. She pulled a pair of boot-cut, dark wash jeans from its hanger, and Melody shook her head.

“You need to spice things up a little. Don’t you have anything cuter?”

“What’s wrong with jeans? I’m working today, I’m just gonna take ‘em off, anyway.”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess so. But still, those aren’t exciting. We need to take you to Hot Topic.”

“Ew. That store’s skanky.”

“No, it’s not! It’s FUN!” Melody folded her arms beneath her breasts. “We’re going.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. When’s your last period?”

“Three.”

“We’ll head to the mall at four-thirty.”

“Mel, seriously…”

“Seriously, Ethel. You’ll thank me.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“So what about whatshisname?”

“Who? Moose?”

“MOOSE?!? That’s his name? Ohmigod!”

“It’s short for Marmaduke.”

“MARMADUKE? Like the dog in the newspaper funnies?” Melody shrieked, and Ethel winced and drilled her pinkie into her ear.  


“Volume,” she pleaded as she got dressed.

“That’s so CUTE! Marmaduke! Moose! Moose what?”

“Mason.”

“That’s adorable! I love it. Ethel and Moose,” Melody pronounced soundly.

“Ethel and Moose… get out of here with that.” Ethel swatted Melody with her towel. “I went to high school with him. I didn’t think I’d run into anyone I know all the way out here.”

“That’s a good thing, right? You’re a froshie,” Melody reminded her. “It’s cool to have a friend from home when you’re new.”

“I know, but we didn’t know each other that well.”  
“Did you ever hang out?”  


“Not… really. We had a lot of the same friends, but we weren’t close friends.” Like, hardly at all. But Ethel could at least say she’d grown up with him. For as long as she remembered, Moose was always one half of “Moose and Midge.” She wondered how the petite softball player was doing. Were they a successful long-distance couple? Ethel wondered what that even entailed. Seeing someone on weekends and holidays and communicating by texts or Web cam wasn’t the same as having someone you could kiss hello every day… not that she knew. Ethel’s dating experience was limited to a grudging, mostly one-sided “thing” she had with Jughead. She mooned over him since junior high, and after enough wearing him down, he began to call her from time to time. Their first few dates showed her quickly enough that Ethel was being friend-zoned, without him coming out and saying the words. Did anyone ever get away with saying “Let’s just be friends” without the other person hating their guts? Ever? He sometimes kissed her cheek. Ethel might as well have been dating her grandpa.

“So, he’s in the class you’re modeling for?”

“Uh-huh.”  
“Did he sit right up front?” Melody’s grin was smug. “Bet he wants to.”  
“No. Thank God,” Ethel pronounced. “I couldn’t deal with that if he did.”  
“What’s the big deal?”  
“It would be… awkward. Weird,” Ethel clarified.  


“Isn’t being up in front of the class weird, too?”

“Not the same kind of weird. When I sit up there, I just focus on something else. I’m not really there. It’s kind of relaxing.”

“I still can’t believe it. I’m impressed,” Melody assured her as she sipped her coffee. They chatted for a while and Melody began rifling through her closet.  
“This is okay. Eh. Eh. Maybe. Grandma. Nah.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘grandma?’”

“This peasanty-looking thing. Ugh. No. Don’t ever wear this. It’s too old school grunge.” Melody chucked the cotton gauze sundress onto the bed. “Better yet, just throw it out.”

“NO! It’s a perfectly good dress, Mel!”

“Maybe if you’re reading angry poetry about government and saving the planet in the quad and shaking a tambourine. There’s nothing wrong with shaking a tambourine, mind you; I do that once in a while. But not in the quad. And not in this.”  
“What if I want to take up angry poetry? Mel, don’t!” Melody removed the hanger and chucked the dress into the wastebasket.

“Out. This, too.” She reached for Ethel’s Riverdale High hoodie, royal blue with yellow lettering.

“No. I need that, at least for around the dorm.” Melody gave her the stink-eye. “It’s getting cold out.”  
“Okay. Just until we get you a cute jacket.” Melody shuddered as she looked at the innocent sweatshirt, then reluctantly rehung it. “What else can we clean out of here?”

“Um, why are we cleaning out my closet?”

“To make room for the cute stuff.”  
“Um… I’m working minimum wage. I’m eating ramen for two out of three meals a day. I’m scrounging quarters for laundry. I can’t afford much.”  
“I just got my allowance,” Melody shrugged.  
“Don’t you need to feed yourself with it?”  
“I bought a mountain bike with last month’s,” Melody pointed out.  
“I hate you.”  
“You love me. You’re going shopping with me.”  
“Penney’s.”  
“Hot Topic.”  
“Marshall’s.”  
“Hot. Topic.”  
“Sears?”  
“Only if you’re a swinging grandma.”  
“I repeat: I. Hate. You.”  
“Be ready at four-thirty. Meet me at the student union.”

Moose assembled his portfolio, cramming in his pencil case and charcoals. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and tucked his sketch pad under his arm. Ambrose watched him get ready to go, pausing at his laptop.  
“Drawing class?”  
“Uh-huh.”  
“Let me see what you drew.”  
“Nah. It’s not great.”  
“Aw, let me see, man!” Ambrose motioned to him to hand it over. Moose rolled his eyes and groaned, surrendering it. Ambrose flipped through a few pages of Moose’s rough experiments.  
“It looks like a hand… made out of spaghetti.”  
“We use blind contour technique. You hafta draw your hand without looking at it.”  
“It almost looks like a hand,” Ambrose agreed, “kinda. Neat, though.” He kept flipping, offering Moose the occasional “Hmm” as he went. He nodded after a few more pages. “Whoa. David.”  
“Huh?”  
“Michelangelo’s David.”  
“You can tell that’s what it is?”  
“Yeah! You did an okay job, bub.”  
“I thought it kinda sucked.”  
“You might start getting good at this, just keep… wow.” Ambrose’s eyes widened and flitted over the next page. “Who’s she?”  
“You don’t remember Ethel? Ethel Muggs?”  
“That’s Ethel? BIG Ethel?” Ambrose whistled. “Dude. I only remember her from middle school, before I moved away. She was kinda gawky. Look at her now,” he marveled. “Dang…”  
“Dude, don’t talk about her like that!” Moose snapped.  
“What? I’m just appreciating,” Ambrose grinned. “She’s cute! Ethel wasn’t too bad back then.”  
“Pfffft,” Moose huffed. “She was a beast before she got her braces off. She got a little cute, after a while.”  
“She’s very cute,” Ambrose insisted. He tapped the page. “She has nice lines, and a kind of different look. I like her cheekbones. And she’s got a great neck. Great legs, too-“  
“Gimme that back.” Moose grabbed the sketch pad hastily and flapped it shut. “I’m out.”  
“That’s fine. Meet me at the library after dinner?”  
“Econ?” Moose deflated. He forgot about his mid-term.  
“Yup. Get it over with. Just like ripping off a band-aid.”  
“I hate econ.”  
“You can sell the book on craigslist when you’re done with it. Some lucky freshman will be glad to have it next semester.” Moose eyed the dog-eared, beat-up text on his desk.  
“Maybe not in the shape it’s in…”  
“Library.”  
“Class.”  
“Yup. Tell Ethel hi.” Moose suppressed a growl as he left. Ambrose shook his head and chuckled.  
“You don’t think she’s a beast anymore, dude.”

Moose fumed all the way to class, knowing it would be even more awkward than before, especially after Ethel told him off. She didn’t have any business getting pissed off with him, Moose reasoned. Did she just wake up one morning and decide to herself “I feel like taking off my clothes in a room full of strangers now that I’m hundreds of miles away from my parents?”

If it had been Midge, Moose never would have accepted it. It was one thing when Midge took her clothes off for him – and yes, she had, more than once – but that was the two of them. He couldn’t stand it when anyone else even looked cross-eyed at her, fully clothed. Midge certainly wasn’t bashful; she wore what she wanted most of the time, sometimes along the lines of some of the slinky, skimpy things that Veronica Lodge put on every day. He liked how Midge looked when she wore something tiny, but if he was staring at her, everyone else was, too.

But the clothes weren’t the main issue between them. Midge didn’t discourage guys flirting with her, something that occurred to him the longer he pondered their breakup. Reggie Mantle was the most stubborn, testing him every time; a fool and his teeth were soon parted, in Moose’s humble opinion. In hindsight, though, it wasn’t worth it.  


Midge dumping him was a bitter pill to swallow. Midge was his first date, first dance, first kiss, and she showed him every intimate thing he knew. She was his world. Of course he wanted to hold on to her, and of course he didn’t want to share. Moose was new to the feeling of being single again, not having text messages to return or someone to call before he went out. Eating dinner alone sucked, and he didn’t feel like going to the movies by himself, something he realized after about his second week of classes. Being on his own scared him a little…

… yet, it was exciting. Freedom wasn’t a bad thing. No one was nagging him off his X-Box. He could eat pork rinds without Midge threatening not to kiss him, or spicy Takis. She wouldn’t keep stealing his tee shirts and take forever to give them back. They wouldn’t have to have “Whatcha doin’?/What are you thinking?” conversations anymore. It was nice to spend time with her, but sometimes they just got together out of mutual boredom, and were just… bored together. She wouldn’t change his radio station anymore to whiny Miley or Britney, Flyleaf or Bjork. Moose could focus on football when he wasn’t in class, and while there was a gaping void after Midge pushed him aside, he could still fill that time pretty easily. What hurt, though, was wondering when he stopped being good enough. The music was still playing, but she told him the party was over.

Moose braced himself when he reached the classroom door, expelling a noisy breath. He jerked the knob and found the same seat he’d had before, thankfully empty. He was fine with staying in the back, in light of his last talk with Ethel.  
*

“Um… so, why were you naked in there?” The words left his mouth in a rush, and she blinked.  
“Uh…”  
“Y’know… totally naked… in front of people?” he pressed, as though she hadn’t understood him the first time. She cocked her head and her mouth dropped open, then clapped shut. Ethel expelled a gusty breath.  
“Moose… what does it matter? I was working. Modeling. I answered the ad that they needed a model for this class.”  
“They? Who’s ‘they?’”  
“The dean of the art department. This is an actual job that I had to apply for.”  
“But… was this the only kind of job you could get?”  
“Moose… why? Why do you even want to know?” Ethel’s throat was tight and her heart was hammering, both with annoyance and tension. Her cheeks felt hot, and she felt resentment rising within her. “What’s it to you?”  
“What’s it to me? What do you mean, what’s it to me?” Moose rocked back on his heels, not believing what he was hearing. Was she getting pissed with him?  
“You act like I was doing something… I don’t know… shameful, or something,” she pressed. “People model for art classes, Moose. That’s why they call it ‘life art.’”  
“Couldn’t you have just done the portrait class?” Moose tossed back. “Geez, Bee…”  
“No. Ethel. Not ‘Bee.’ I don’t go by that anymore.” Ethel’s gray eyes turned into slits and she gripped her purse strap more tightly. “It’s just ‘Ethel.’ It’s ALWAYS been Ethel. Not Big Ethel. Not Sasquatch. Not Stretch. Ethel Lorraine Muggs.”  
“I know that.”  
“Then act like you remember,” she snapped. “Don’t pick on me about my job. I was lucky to get a job when I needed one.”  
“You don’t need money that badly,” he scoffed.  
“Not that badly,” Ethel murmured. “Wow. You said that like I was turning tricks on the corner.”  
“That’s not what I said! Don’t put words in my mouth! Why? Do you think it’s the same thing?” Moose accused. “I know it’s not!”  
“Then don’t stand here and lecture me,” Ethel hissed, realizing people were staring at them as they walked by. Ethel didn’t realize until then that she had quickened her pace, trying to get away from the art studio as quickly as possible. Her long legs flashed in angry strides, both challenging him to keep up and distracting him with their tempting shape. Stan was right about those, even if he’d wanted to kill him.  
What was wrong with him? Stan could look at Ethel however he wanted, it was a free country, but… still…  
It pissed him off. Heaven only knew why.  
“I’m not lecturing you. I’m not your dad,” Moose reasoned gruffly. “Look, if you wanna embarrass yourself up there, go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.” Ethel stopped short, and her posture went completely stiff. He came up short behind her, not realizing until then how closely he’d been dogging her footsteps. She whipped around, and he saw Armageddon rising up in her gray eyes – prettier than he’d realized, before – as she stared him down and made her case.  
“Who said I’m embarrassing myself? Seriously?” Moose suddenly felt small.  
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean it-“  
“Yes, Moose, you did. I’m not embarrassed. Maybe you think I should be. I have nothing to be ashamed of.” Her voice caught for a brief second, but she mastered it with a deep breath. “First of all, I know I’m not anyone’s cup of tea, Moose. Second, I’m not up there pretending to be a Hooters girl or a Playmate. It’s just art. I’m not full of myself. I’m not showing off. Shoot, I know you don’t think I have anything to show off, anyway, and I’m not doing this to impress anyone. And third, going back to my earlier question, what’s it to you?” Every time his mouth opened even a little, the words snapped out of her mouth more sharply, stinging him. “You act like I’m hideous, or something.”  
“NO!” Moose flushed and he felt his stomach knot.  
“We’re done here. Just… enough. Bye.”  
“That wasn’t what I meant!” He called after her, but all he got was her back. She stalked away, and she waved him off in a classic “Whatever!” gesture that used to annoy him whenever Midge did it, too. Her posture was too stiff; he did that. “Geez,” he muttered aloud. Moose lumbered off to his next class, frustrated and feeling like a heel for hurting her feelings.

*  
“Dude, help me out here. What’s wrong with women?”  
“Women in general?” Ambrose smirked as he looked up from his laptop screen. Moose kicked the door to their room shut behind him, tossed his backpack into the corner and flopped onto his narrow twin’s blue plaid comforter.  
“Eerrgh…”  
“One woman in particular?”  
“Yeah,” Moose mumbled into his pillow, voice muffled. “Should’ve kept my big mouth shut. Stuck my foot into it instead.”  
“Nice. Talked to your ex.”  
“Nah.” Ambrose raised his brows in interest.  
“New girl?”

“No. Old girl. Ethel.”  
“Uh-oh. What happened?”  
“I made the mistake of asking her about her job.” Ambrose winced.  
“You mean her life art gig?”  
“Yeah. Her nose got bent out of shape…”  
“Ah. Let me guess. You asked her why she was doing it, and she told you to bugger off.”  
“Yup.”  
“Ouch.” Ambrose leaned back and folded his arms. “Should’ve known better, bro. Better to let it go.”  
“Dude… it was just weird, y’now?”  
“No. I don’t know.”  
“Dude… seriously. I mean, when you’ve seen a girl naked, when you’ve been with her, it’s different.”  
“You haven’t been with Ethel,” Ambrose reminded him wryly.  
“Well, no shit. But once you’ve seen everything, it’s distracting. Midge and I could talk about everything before we finally did it, and we waited a long time. Well, she made me wait,” Moose clarified when Ambrose rolled his eyes. “And it sucked, I might add. But after that, I’d look at her and keep seeing her out of her clothes.”  
“You’ve got a one-track mind, my friend.”  
“No shit, I’m a guy.” Ambrose shrugged in agreement. “But it didn’t matter what she was talking about. She could ask me, ‘What do you want on your pizza?’ and I’d hear ‘Take me now, Moose.’ I couldn’t keep my mind off of her, or my hands off of her.”  
“Too much information.”  
“Yeah, well… I’m just sayin’, Ambrose, it’s weird when you know someone as long as we’ve known Ethel, and one day, just – BAM! Naked. Right out in the open. She was pissed.”  
“What did you say to her?”  
“I asked her if she could’ve gotten a different job.”  
“What? Like the library? Mickie Dee’s? Signing people up for Discover cards in the student union? Perfume squirter?”  
“Dickhead,” Moose snorted. “No.”  
“If all she has to do is hold a pose or two and get paid, I can see why she took it. There’s worse stuff out there.”  
“She’s gonna embarrass herself.”  
“Hope you didn’t tell her that,” Ambrose warned. Moose’s lips tightened, and his chest rose and fell with a heavy gust. “Ouch… dude. You didn’t.”  
“Maybe I did.”  
“You might as well have eaten a shit sandwich and asked her for a kiss. Moose, it’s Ethel. She was sensitive back when we were kids. You practically called her ugly.”  
“I didn’t call her ugly!”  
“Think of how it probably sounded to her, man. C’mon. Ethel’s not gonna have her feelings hurt, being told that she’s embarrassing herself taking her clothes off?” Moose felt ashamed all over again, being called out by his roomie. “Moose, get a clue.”

*  
“You need this,” Melody announced as she tugged a screaming red, plaid school girl skirt with large black buckles laddered down the side off the rack and held it against Ethel’s waist. N.E.R.D. was pumping from the speakers, and Ethel’s arms were already laden with things her roommate insisted she had to try on.  
“I do not need that,” she corrected her testily. “No, no, no.”  
“Not showing off those stems is a crime against nature. You’ve got it. Flaunt it, fer cryin’ out loud!” Melody gave Ethel’s rear a bruising, savage slap.  
“OW!”  
“Don’t be a baby.” She dragged Ethel to the changing room and pointed imperiously to the dressing room. “In. Now. Go, go, go!” It was a wide stall, and Ethel flushed immediately.  
“You’re not going to hang out in here with me while I’m trying it on!”  
“Of course I am!” Melody trilled. “Either that, or I walk back out, and you come out and show me each outfit?”  
“Bitch,” Ethel grumbled. She had a point. “Don’t look at me.”  
“I’ve seen it already. What’s the big deal? You’ve seen me naked,” Melody told her cavalierly.  
“Not so loud!” Ethel swatted at her, and Melody play-swatted back, pretending they were having a slap-fight.  
“Just try them on!”  
“You’re out of your mind. You know this, right? You’re like the sister I never had, Mel, and I love you to death, but the butter has dripped off your noodle,” Ethel told her, grunting as she hopped into an absurdly tiny Lycra dress, “if you think I’m wearing this out in public-“  
“Um. Ethel. Look. Just turn around and look.”  
“What? Look at what?” Ethel said sourly, following the path of Melody’s finger from where the blonde sat. Ethel’s eyes drifted to her reflection in the unforgiving changing room mirror.  
“Look at that. That’s you, when you’re not covering up what you have. Ethel, you look hot.”  
“On the contrary. I’m freezing.”  
“No, silly goose. You’re full of shit. That dress looks awesome on you. You’re rocking it.”  
“I need more up here,” Ethel whined, reaching up to cup her modest breasts, but her hands smoothed over them briefly, skimming down the length of her narrow torso and over her flat stomach as she assessed the dress. The white knit hid nothing, and Ethel felt truly naked in it. Melody grinned at her in the mirror.  
“Flaunt what you’ve got. I’d tap that!”  
“Shut. Up!” Ethel was blushing furiously. “Where’s my shoe?” She bent down to retrieve her tennis sneaker and brandished it at Mel, who pretended to duck. Sometimes, she just didn’t know about her roommate…  
“Take that one off. I’m taking it out to the register. You’re buying it.”  
“No! Ack! Quit it!” Melody got up and began to wrestle the dress off of her, yanking the straps down her shoulders.  
“Are you doing okay in there?” The clerk knocked politely, but Ethel heard a hint of warning in her voice at their horseplay.  
“We’re fine,” Melody sang cheerfully. Ethel swatted at her hands, but Melody gave the dress one more swift yank, practically tripping her as Ethel found herself forced to step out of it. Melody triumphantly brandished the dress, shoving it over the edge of the door. The clerk accepted it quickly, and Melody called out to her, “We’ll take that one, if you can hold it for us.”  
“That’s fine,” she agreed, and Ethel was relieved to hear her retreat.  
“That was so uncalled for.”  
“Try the next one.” Melody perused the pile of goodies, holding up a pink angora sweater. “I might get this in my size. We can be twins.”  
“Um, no.”  
“Party poop.” Ethel rolled her eyes, dreading the thought of anyone comparing them in “Who Wore It Best” style if they stepped out in the same clothes. She snatched away the sweater and tugged it over her head.  
“Maybe this, with the jeans.”  
“No. That with the skirt.” Melody held up a black pleather number, and Ethel shook her head.  
“It’ll look like I’m trying too hard.”  
“No. It’ll look great. Put it on.”  
“I don’t like drawing that much attention to myself.”  
“Ethel, get real. You don’t want to draw much attention to yourself, but then you complain that guys don’t notice you. It’s like you don’t want them to. Now, this is me when I want a guy to notice me: ‘LOOK AT ME! OVER HERE! YOO-HOO!” Melody waved emphatically, jiggling for emphasis. “This is you: ‘Don’t look at me!’” Melody lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper with her impersonation, and her posture closed up, covering her eyes with her hands, then peeked between her fingers at Ethel.  
“They’re going to kick us out of the store,” Ethel warned.  
“Need any help in there?” The clerk knocked again, as if on cue. Ethel shushed Melody, who started to giggle.  
“We’re fine!” she trilled back.  
“Nutball,” Ethel accused under her breath. She tried the skirt with the sweater, then made a face. “I don’t know.”  
“It’s not bad.”  
“Maybe it’s the sweater that doesn’t work.”  
“By itself, or just with the skirt?”  
“It’s too… fluffy. I’m not ‘fluffy.’ You could pull it off, but I just look silly. I almost like the skirt. Almost.”  
“I like it on you. We need that little chain belt we saw out there earlier to go with it.” Ethel warmed to the idea.  
“Maybe.”  
“Try this red top with the skirt, instead. You look nice in red.” Ethel shucked the sweater and passed it back to Melody, slipping into the strategically ripped top.  
“My folks will kill me if I ever wear this home.”  
“If they don’t do your laundry anymore, they don’t have to know,” Melody reasoned.  
“You were one of those girls who used to wear one outfit to school, then change before home room, weren’t you?”  
“Well, duh.” Ethel turned back to the mirror, then jerked back.  
“Whoa. Wow.” Melody nodded emphatically.  
“Yes. That. That’s going home with us.”  
“Bad idea.”  
“You’re not the one in charge.”  
“I’m not? How am I not the one in charge? It’s my body.”  
“You lost all decision-making power with that nasty peasant dress thing we threw out. You don’t get to dress you anymore, I get to dress you.”  
“But-“  
“I’m not finished going through your stuff, either. We never touched your trunk. If I find Doc Martens, those little crocheted granny sweaters, or Molly Ringwald hats with flowers on them, you’re grounded.” Ethel winced. It was going to be a long, looooonng afternoon.

*  
Ethel went online a couple of days later and checked her bank balance. When she saw the amount was in the low double digits, she groaned; she’d barely have enough money for laundry and ramen until payday after her little shopping spree with Mel. She glanced at her closet, sighing over the new purchases hung neatly on the rack, price tags still attached. She made up her mind not to regret her new finds, even if she was still wondering where to even wear them. A darkened living room of a frat house, maybe; a classroom, probably not.  
She was due to cross paths with Moose again, and Ethel was dreading it. Their tiff still left a bitter taste in her mouth. Maybe she tore into him somewhat unfairly, but the things he’d said brought back all of the old hurts.  
Ethel was embarrassed. She argued with herself endlessly after she left him that afternoon, insisting that he had no clue what he was talking about, but the shoe fit too well. If she had to sum it up, Ethel wasn’t ashamed so much of what the other students thought of how she looked, in part due to them not knowing her. She was a perfect stranger, and an object to be drawn. To Moose, she was a former classmate, and to a certain extent, an old target.  
Why was she concerned about what he thought? Why was she giving his opinion that much value? They were never really friends. They never dated. She never had a crush on him… thank goodness, she mused. Ethel wasn’t his type by a long shot, if Midge was any indication. Perfect skin, perfect hair, petite, perfect breasts… of course Moose was picky. They’d made something of an odd couple with his ruddy, boyish looks and meaty bulk. Moose with his high standards was a great judge of feminine beauty.  
“I sure made him blush,” Ethel murmured to herself. That moment played itself out in her head again, those eyes meeting hers, tearing themselves away from her body with difficulty, seeing the tension in his throat as he swallowed roughly. Her breath had caught with anticipation as it registered who he was, and where they were. Ethel wished, now, that she had been sassier with him, and less… well, not apologetic. No. She wasn’t sorry. He wouldn’t get that from her.  
She got ready for her day. Melody was already out, meeting up with her bandmates for brunch and skipping her calculus class, against Ethel’s advice. Josie and Val were just as beautiful as Mel; Ethel wanted to hate them on sight, but they were really nice. Unlike Melody’s girlish love of everything pink and sweet, Valerie’s style was edgy, and Josie was a bit of a tomboy, both of them favoring ripped up jeans, extreme jewelry and tattoos. Valerie’s platinum ear gages made Ethel cringe, but on the dark, curly-haired bass player, it worked. She declined their offer to join them and made her way to the dining hall for a quick bite and a coffee.  
Ethel’s steps slowed and became plodding and reluctant as she entered the school of art. She would have to face him, yet –  
Not really.  
Ethel realized that she didn’t have to even look in his direction. Ethel’s ability to do her job hinged strongly on tuning out the distractions around her and just relaxing. She wasn’t putting on a show, contrary to his opinion. It wasn’t important to act natural, it was essential to be natural. She greeted the professor and nodded to a few of the students as they said hello. Ethel made a beeline into her makeshift changing room. She slipped out of her clothes and shrugged into her robe; by the time she emerged, she saw Moose out of the corner of her eye, setting up his easel. He still sat near the back of the room, which was fine with her. His neighbor – Stan, she thought she recalled – winked and grinned at her. She offered him a tight little smile in return. Okay, him, she could avoid, too.  
*  
Moose felt himself burning up with the effort of avoiding her glance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her familiar dark robe and that she had her hair pulled up again. He was secretly pleased; he liked seeing her neck. His professor reminded them that a great figure drawing kept the line of the neck visible and intact. Moose still wanted to get the class over with; even econ appealed to him more than sketching a girl who now likely despised him.  
He braced himself and averted his eyes when she dropped the robe, busying himself with getting out his pencils and charcoals. “Charcoals this time, Moose. Try the fine vines this time, I’d like to see how you do with those and how well you can work on your shading.”  
“Fine.” Moose hated how messy the charcoals were, how the dark dust ended up all over the place, inevitably wiped on his jeans by the end of the session. He obediently stowed the pencils and got out his blending stump, flipping to a fresh page of newsprint.  
He found Ethel seated on a stool on the low platform, all elegant limbs and angles, her pale skin smooth and gleaming slightly from some oil that she’d smoothed on it. Her expression was neutral, and she faced the left side of the room initially as she settled into her pose. The professor got her attention for a moment.  
“Ethel? Would you mind facing this way? Bend that arm a little, too, and spread out your fingers. I don’t want anyone to have to simple an angle when they draw your back. I need people to work on foreshortening. There. Better. Let’s work with that.” Ethel fumed. That left her facing Moose, almost head-on. She forced herself to look at a point above his shoulder. “Nice! Great expression, we can work with that. Hold that for five minutes, Ethel.” The professor turned on some low music, and Ethel tried to retreat into her own world.  
Easier said than done. Once in a while, his movements broke her reverie, while she tried to think of mundane things. She watched the movement of his hands, large and thick-fingered, smeared with dark gray charcoal dust. He handled the vine awkwardly, as though he were afraid it would snap in his grip. Moose had a hard look of concentration on his face as he sketched, not as relaxed as Stan, or of the older re-entry students in the front row, artists at leisure who were just there for enrichment. Ethel ignored a kink in her neck and mentally counted one-mississippi, two-mississippi while she listened to the low ticks of the timer. The buzzer went off, and Ethel stood and stretched.  
“That! Hold that! That’s nice.”  
“It wasn’t on purpose,” she argued.  
“It works. Go with it. Face that way!”  
“Right! Got it!”  


Moose was losing the battle with his body not to think of her… inappropriately. Her pose wasn’t helping matters any. Her arms were lifted slightly above her head, bent and relaxed like someone sitting up at the edge of the bed, stretching out the kinks. His brain painted the picture, and everything below the waist was paying attention. Moose tried to ignore a tightening in his loins and the rush of heat to his crotch. The pose lifted her breasts, soft, pouting little mounds whose peaks puckered in the slight draft of the room. Moose counted her ribs and his eyes measured her legs… damn it, they went on forever. His professor picked that moment to hover.

“You have a perfect vantage point where you’re sitting today. Look at that. She’s great. I want you to detail those fingers, Duke. She has a nice arch to her back.”  
Ethel almost snickered. Duke? She remembered his full name, but she’d only ever known him as Moose. It wasn’t a bad name, though, she supposed. She was so tempted to see what he had on his sketch pad. One of her favorite things to do was to peruse the students’ work on her little breaks between long poses. Right now, though, she was stuck. The time seemed to drag on forever.  


The buzzer sounded again. “Go ahead and stretch,” the professor suggested. “I have some ideas I’d like you to try out when we come back.”

“Okay,” she replied uncertainly. The professor stepped out briefly, and Ethel eased into her robe, strolling around the tiny studio. She peeked over a few shoulders, curious to see what people saw when they looked at her. Each impression surprised her. Some of the drawings were rendered in scribbly style, just capturing her pose itself, where others were complex and thorough, lines capturing every angle and plane of her body. A few of the drawings didn’t include her head, which she found off-putting, but a scant few rendered her expression realistically, as though the artist was sitting right in front of her and sharing a coffee. Ethel appreciated details like the highlights cast over her hair and the arch of her brows, or the tendons and hollows of her throat and neck. She chuckled to herself when she saw how big her feet looked on one sketch pad. She stopped short of Stan and Moose, making brief eye contact with the former before she turned back toward the platform.  


“Don’t run off,” Stan beckoned. “Take a break. Hang out for a sec.” Ethel turned around, slightly surprised. Her hand rose, gesturing to herself.

“Huh? Wait… me?”  
“Yeah. You. You just work for the art department, or are you a student?”  
“I’m a freshman here.”  
“How you liking it so far?”  
“It’s great. Still weird being this far from home.”  
“You’re from Riverdale, right?” Moose gave him a stony look. Ethel glanced accusingly at Moose when she replied.  
“Sure am. Born and raised.”  
“Small town girl.”  
“Best kind of town.” She assessed Stan briefly. His smile was open, and he seemed to be losing the war not to stare at her legs, exposed from just above the knee by the skimpy wrap.  
“Ethel, let’s begin again,” the professor suggested. “We have enough time left for another complete sketch. People, I want to see details, proportion, shading and composition. Use the entire page. Remember which direction your light source is coming from.”  
“Bye,” Ethel tossed over her shoulder.”  
“Stan,” he told her.  
“Huh?”  
“Stan Gold.”  
“Ethel Muggs.” She gave him a little wave and headed back to the platform. Moose held his tongue, but he simmered, taking the time to wipe his coal-stained fingers with a small rag.  
Didn’t she notice he was trying to pick up on her? Moose watched the cheeseball next to him continue to ogle his old classmate and felt annoyed. “Learn those lines from your grandpa?”  
“Pfft… so what? I was just talking to her, man.”  
“Trying a little hard.”  
“Who was trying anything?” Stan turned toward him, smirking. “What’s it to you?” His voice dropped as he leaned in, and Moose panicked as he watched it dawn on Stan, light bulb blinking on. “You into her?”  
“Shut up!” Moose hissed. Ethel’s head jerked in their direction just as she was about to take off her robe. Moose looked away quickly. She turned her back from them both and dropped the garment off the edge of the platform and approached a small pile of props. She took a small silk rose and instinctively tucked it behind her ear.  
“Nice,” the professor encouraged. Ethel spread a brightly striped zarape across the platform and automatically sat on it like a beach towel. She set out a small lotion bottle beside her and was inspired.  


“Go ahead.” Ethel mimed putting on sunscreen. “Yup. We can work with that.” She stopped the movement mid-stroke. “Love it. Time set.”

Moose’s mind wandered to recent weeks, remembering his last summer at home with his friends, with his girlfriend, no longer a minor. Every moment that he wasn’t making deliveries for the florist shop, Moose spent at the beach, pounding a volleyball over the net, feeling his soles toughening from the hot sand. Midge played with him and worked on her tan, sending him to the concession shack for diet sodas and ice cream bars, sharing her iPod’s ear buds when they retired to the blanket. They made out surreptitiously, sometimes retreating to his truck or behind the beach house. Moose wished he’d known those days were numbered; the idyll ended too soon, stolen from him by a text message.

He shook himself from his reverie and focused on his assignment. All that was missing from the vision before him was a boy-cut tankini, sunglasses and a few issues of Cosmo. Moose was used to seeing Ethel alone at the beach, no boyfriends in sight. Sometimes he saw her with Betty and Nancy, and occasionally Veronica, but more often than not, she was on the fringes, more of a fifth wheel when they showed up with Archie, Reg or Chuck in tow. When her friends canoodled, Ethel was the one who made the extra trips to the snack bar or waded in the surf. Sometimes she just kept her nose in her beach novel and her ear buds plugged in. Moose wondered what she was trying to tune out.  
The Ethel he knew stood at odds with the one before him, but Moose began to draw, with some difficulty. His hand grew more used to her spare lines. There was a shadow beneath her chin that he’d captured before. She sported a tiny scar across one knee, a souvenir from a rollerskating accident when she was ten. Her overbite had been corrected by braces, that much he remembered, but she still had a long, narrow jaw, a tad too extreme for beauty.  
It still gave her something.  
Her nose escaped him. Its shape was irregular, a common magnet for taunts – including his – and prominent. He couldn’t capture it, and he decided to rough in her features, focusing instead on her limbs, trying to nail the pose this time. Foreshortening was still his worst enemy. When objects were closest to him, he felt like he was making them too stubby, but he tried to force himself to truly draw what he saw. He knew how long her forearms were – her reach was as long as his, easily – but if she reached out and pointed toward him, it would seem to disappear behind her hand.  
Drawing wasn’t a cake class, not by far.  
She was avoiding his gaze, which actually made it easier for him, but he still felt guilty over their last conversation. It wasn’t like they were friends, but he didn’t want to be on her shit list, either.  
The next half hour sailed by, finding him erasing as much as he drew. His professor made a thoughtful sound behind him.  
“Don’t overthink it. Don’t erase so much. There are no bad lines, here. If you have to take a breather and come back to it, that’s fine.”  
“I think I’ve done as much as I can do,” Moose admitted, slightly defeated. His drawing was a pile of crap in his eyes, and he flipped the sketch pad shut.  
“Don’t give up on it!” His instructor’s smile was good natured as he clapped him on the shoulder.  
“Right.” Stan shrugged.  
“Done for the day?”  
“Yeah. Kind of.” There were three minutes left on the timer. Moose flipped open the pad again to his rejected sketch and sighed. It didn’t look right. Her features were blocked in, but he’d failed to detail them properly, and he felt like he’d copped out. Even partly formed, her mouth seemed to grimace and mutter, Asshole. Moose picked up his charcoal and plowed ahead. Why not? It couldn’t get any worse.  
*  
Ethel was out the door like a shot once her robe was stuffed into her Jansport pack, zipping her jacket against the nippy air. They didn’t need to revisit him telling her-  
“Ethel!”  
“…shit.”  
“Wait. Ethel, wait. Please.” She heard his voice, slightly out of breath, deep and thick as he fell in step with her.  
“Whatever.”  
“Please?” His tone was plaintive, and she slowed but didn’t stop.  
“Why?”  
“I just wanna talk to you.”  
“So talk.”  
“You didn’t have to get pissed at me, y’know.”  
“Who’s pissed?”  
“You are.”  
“No, I’m not.”  
“You were.”  
“Okay.”  
“Well, you were.”  
“And why was I missed, Marmaduke?”  
“I dunno… you got mad at me because I asked if you couldn’t get a different job.”  


“No. That’s not it, and you know it.”

“And what’s this Marmaduke stuff? You never call me that.”

“It’s your name.”

“I know it is. I didn’t know you knew it was.” He was getting slightly out of breath following her – chasing her – and his large hand clapped itself around her upper arm, circling it completely. It hit him how sparely she was built, and he gentled his grip when she glared down at his hand, then lifted chilly gray eyes to his.

“Off.”

“Sorry.” He obeyed, and she stepped back from him, adjusting her pack on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ethel.”  


“Okay.”

“First of all, I didn’t mean to insult you. I didn’t.”

“Okay.”

“When I said ‘embarrass yourself…’ that wasn’t what I meant.” She opened her mouth, but he shushed her. “It wasn’t.”

“Sure seemed like it.”

“Seemed like what?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know.” His expression was clueless.

“You think I’m hideous!” she blurted.

“What?” he grunted. “Says who?”

“Said you,” she accused, jabbing a finger into his chest. She spun away from him, and he stood there, flummoxed for a few seconds. His face twisted into a scowl.

“What?” he repeated, voice raising. “Seriously?”

“Leave me alone, Marmaduke.”

“God, please quit calling me that.”

“It’s your name.”

“Not my choice.” She almost pitied him. Ethel wasn’t the easiest cross to bear, either. No store ever sold personalized key chains, mugs, or charm bracelets with her name on it, did they?

“Just leave me alone.” Her voice sounded resigned. He gave up the chase and watched her sail away from him, buffeted but hardly slowed by the harsh autumn winds. He sighed, long-suffering and defeated.

“That went well.”


	3. Laundry Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quarters and ramen. Solo cups and porch couches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss college… I sure as HELL don’t miss high school.

Moose hated trying to fight for the single washer and dryer in his wing of the residence hall. Like everyone else, he packed up his laundry into an enormous duffle and drove it down the street to the strip mall. The Laundromat boasted basic cable and wi-fi access and sat next to a twenty-four hour donut café. The parking lot wasn’t well lit at night; he always locked his truck up tight if he went there after hours. Moose always made a valiant effort at bringing a text book with him, thinking to kill two birds with one stone, but inevitably he turned the set to the game and fiddled with his phone. Sometimes he texted Midge, but her answers were terse and brief. It frustrated him.

Once in a while, he went to parties, and girls occasionally flirted with him, but they didn’t hold his interest. He liked girls who liked sports and things like camping or hitting the beach, and Moose hated the mall. He liked eating out at casual places with short menus, pool tables and dart boards in the back. It was still flattering to have the attention, but Moose didn’t ask for numbers, simply telling them that he’d see them around at the next mixer or in class.

The campus was a flurry of activity due to rush season, and he saw a lot of girls walking around in sorority sweatshirts and passing out flyers out in the courtyard, recruiting freshman at little tables at the student union hall. Moose considered pledging a fraternity, but it threatened to get in the way of football.

Moose went to the ATM in the small Laundromat and took out a twenty, checking his balance. He whistled in surprised at the meager numbers that greeted him. His scholarship took care of his books, tuition, and a big chunk of his dorm fees, but his allowance from home only went so far. Moose changed his twenty into quarters, musing that the changing clinking into the little metal cup reminded him of a trip to Vegas he’d taken over the summer. He spared three precious dollars on a couple of detergent packets and managed to load one load of darks in the last empty single-capacity machine in the back. He saw three housewives sitting vigil at the large capacity washers, entertaining themselves with women’s magazines and diet Cokes. Moose sighed; it’d take forever to get his laundry done at this rate. It was a sunny day outside, and he craved a bike ride and a round of Frisbee on the lawn between residence halls.

He’d mastered laundry after a couple of months, an accomplishment that made his mother cheer. She didn’t relish his entry into the house with three huge sacks of dirty, smelly clothes twice a month, crying foul to him and reminding him sternly that he was an adult now. His room felt strange to him whenever he visited, his, yet… not. All of his boyhood action figures were still lined up along his windowsill, and his posters still hung from the walls along with his high school football pennants. His trophies still lined the shelves, but his mom had stowed his comic collection in a large sweater box in his closet, and the room was spotlessly clean. Fewer of his clothes hung in the closet now, and his space even smelled different.  
His mother’s meals never tasted so good after weeks of dorm food and ramen. He ladled second and even third helpings onto his plate, making her shake her head.

“They don’t feed you at that school?”

“Is there anymore?”

Sometimes he visited Dilton when he came home for the weekend from MIT. He was amused to see his childhood friend’s beard. He’d filled out slightly and was more laid-back, seeming to isolate himself less now that he had peers with his interests. Moose still felt intimidated listening to him talk about his projects and dissertations, but he was happy for him.

He never tried to visit Midge. Their breakup still stung, even though his feet had worn a groove in the pavement to her house after so long. He missed her touch and her laugh and being the other half of a couple. It was a hard fact to swallow that she could move on so easily and so quickly once there was some distance between them. It humbled him that she considered him disposable.

*

 

Ethel hummed along to her iTunes as she ambled down the block, towing her push cart of laundry under dappled shadows from the trees. The weather was perfect for a walk, even if it was just to the fluff n’ fold. Melody ignored her offer to go together, waving her off from under the covers where she suffered from a massive hangover. Ethel had skipped the party, even though her bubbly roommate had invited her. Ethel felt too self-conscious, and the party was hosted by a raucous fraternity, certainly not her crowd, if she had to be honest.

Ethel was glad her mother gave her the shopping cart. It made life easier when she was out running errands or heading to the farmer’s market downtown or mini-mart to get her meager supply of groceries and toiletries. Melody laughed when she first saw it, claiming that only old ladies used them, but Ethel didn’t care what anyone else thought. It offered her mobility and freedom instead of having to beg anyone for a ride for the sake of carrying her bags.

Ethel maneuvered her way into the Laundromat, nodding a thank-you to the older man who held the door for her. She scoped out the shop, looking for an empty machine. A large, matronly woman in a peasant skirt and knitted cap got up and began to unload one of the large capacity washers, and she grinned at her good fortune.

*

Moose perked his head up at the sound of the buzzer that sounded when the spin cycle was up. “Yay,” he muttered as he snapped his battered copy of The Scarlet Letter shut, all thought of studying forgotten. Moose loaded a nearby cart with a huge dark load, wrinkling his nose at the aroma. He’d waited about three days too long to wash his gym clothes, he’d be the first one to admit it. One of the ladies hogging the big machine glanced up him and gave him a stink face. He rummaged in his pockets for some quarters.

He’d fed two into the slots when he looked up from digging some more. A slender, female hand was feeding the slot in a bid to beat him to the machine. “Hey!” he snapped. “I had dibs!”

“Wha- Moose?” Ethel paused in feeding the machine and took out one of her earbuds, letting it dangle. “I think I saw it first!”

“I’ve been here forever,” he argued, even though twenty minutes probably didn’t qualify as “forever,” but she didn’t know that. “I don’t have that much laundry,” he reasoned. His overloaded cart said otherwise, and Ethel looked skeptical, folding her arms.  
“Looks like a month’s worth from here. I think I saw this machine first.” Moose stared at her incredulously. Ethel Muggs was going to challenge _him_ for a washing machine?

“I had my quarters in it first,” he insisted. Then he reached for a handful of his rank clothes and chucked them into the open hatch. “Dibs.” She glared at him in disgust.

“Ooh! You… you… ew.” She fanned the air. “Okay. Fine. Do something about that stench, then. I’ll consider it a public service.” She took out the quarters she’d fed into the slots and moved her cart down the aisle, setting for a smaller capacity machine. Moose shrugged and kept loading his wash into the machine.

“You’re welcome,” he called after her cheerfully. Ethel gave him a snippy little look, then stuck out her tongue when he had his back turned. Moose packed as much of his clothing into it as he could fit, paying little heed to how well it would agitate, and he emptied a packet of the powdered Cheer into the well. He’d held back most of his whites, then realized belatedly that he didn’t have any bleach.

Ethel stood in the back of the shop, feeding the machine her white load and delicates, and Moose flushed slightly at the sight of the small, lacy scraps of material, triangle-cup bras, silky bikinis and filmy pantyhose. Ethel felt eyes on her back, and she glanced up at him, perturbed. “What?”

“Uh… .nothing.” Her expression made him feel like a lecher. He turned away quickly and returned to comtemplating his laundry. His whites weren’t going to do themselves. As if the universe decided to take pity on him, another guy about his age, ponytailed and sleeved with tribal tats, sauntered to unload his washer when the buzzer went off. Moose and Ethel watched his progress with bated breath. That only seemed to make him move even more slowly, shaking out and smoothing each shirt and pair of pants as he piled it into his laundry basket. _C’mon, c’mon…_ Moose was anxious, craving the sunny afternoon and feeling even more self-conscious at Ethel’s scrutiny.

Ethel wrestled with her laundry sack, dislodging it from her cart. A free afternoon was calling her name, and she didn’t want to waste anymore time in the stuffy little shop than necessary. She rushed the machine and beat Moose’s lunge for it, jerking open the lid and shoveling handfuls of her darks into it. “Ha!” she crowed triumphantly. Moose growled under his breath and rolled his eyes.

“Fine.”

“Hmmph.”

“Geez. Chill, okay?” said Ponytail, giving them both a sketchy look as he retreated with his basket, not wanting to stick around for the drama. Ethel finished loading up her machine and feeding quarters into it. She poured in a stingy amount of her liquid detergent, trying to make it last until her next trip to the market. Moose wanted to grumble at her sabotaging his quick exit, but one of the housewives took mercy on him and unloaded her goodies into a little rolling barrel. She gave him an indulgent smile.

“Your turn.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He beamed, an aw-gee-shucks smile that Ethel wondered if he practiced in the mirror. She sighed and shook her head. He even opened the dryer door for her, earning him a gentle pat. He resumed his laundry, loading the whites, but Ethel noticed he’d forgotten the most important part.

“Where’s your bleach?”

“Didn’t bring any.”

“Your clothes are gonna be dingy.”

“They’ll still be clean,” he shrugged, but he silently agreed with her. He tossed in his last packet of powder, watching it disperse and throw up cool, floral-scented mist from the little well. Ethel shook her head and retreated to the vending machine in the back. She shelled out a buck-fifty for a little cup of ramen noodles and another for a one-liter Pepsi, craving the first sip.

Moose went back to his book with no excitement. Ethel stole glimpses of him once in a while. He was dressed in slick black warmup pants and a light blue Adidas long-sleeved tee, feet shod in gym socks and Teva sandals. His hair looked recently trimmed and spiky and he was munching on a small pouch of trail mix that he’d no doubt bought from the same vending machine. Ethel filled the ramen cup to the line at the battered little sink and put into the microwave that had seen better days and too few wipedowns with a sponge. She hummed to her tunes as it cooked and perused the scant selection of magazines. She saw an issue of last month’s Redbook and decided it would do.

She sighed a moment later, deciding she needed to do a good deed. Ethel reached for her small bottle of generic bleach and headed to his machine, the same one they’d fought over. He glanced up at her accusingly. “What’re you doing?”

“Sending you to class in brighter whites.” She poured about a quarter of a cup of bleach into his load before he could protest. “You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Someone has to supervise you this far away from home.”

“Says you.”

“Yeah, says me.” She went back to her snack, taking it out of the microwave a few seconds shy of the beep. She stirred it with a plastic fork and joined him on the bench without an invitation. “You live on campus?”

“It’s easier. I didn’t have anyone to get an apartment with when I got here.”

“Your roommate decent?”

“He’s a neat freak. You know him, I bet. Ambrose?” Recognition dawned in her eyes.

“Archie’s friend. .From elementary. The one with the goofy imagination.” Moose nodded, chuckling.

“He’s still goofy, but he’s cool.”

“Small world.” Ethel twirled her noodles around her fork before taking a cautious bite, mindful that it was still hot. “My roomie’s from Midvale.”

“Rivals,” Moose muttered.

“Yup. She’s something else.”

“She a pain?”

“No. Just… how can I put this? I live with a living, breathing Barbie doll. I don’t think she has a worry gene, either. Nothing phases her, and she has no idea of what ‘personal space’ is, or discretion.”  
“She sounds cute.” Moose’s face was smug and expectant.

“Don’t even think about it, buddy.” Her cheeks flushed slightly at the thought of Moose making a bid for her roommate’s attention. It hit her, though: Why should she care? Melody didn’t come across as having a lot upstairs, and Moose wasn’t exactly a Rhodes scholar. Maybe they’d hit it off. “And why would it matter if she’s cute? You’re with Midge.”

“It doesn’t matter. But I’m not with Midge. Not anymore.” Moose sullenly munched on a handful of trail mix. “Thanks for bringing that up, Ethel.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She turned away and stared at the floor. Their chat wasn’t going well.

“Yeah. No big deal.”

“So now you can play the field,” Ethel mused.

“Whatever. It’s overrated.”

“Why? You’re a guy. Guys love being single, I thought.”

“Not this guy. Not like this.” He huffed at her. “Do you love being single?”

“Pffft… _no._ Heck, no. I’m not like you. I’ve never been part of an ‘item.’” She made quotey fingers around that word.

“So, you can play the field.”

“I can’t wait.” Ethel rolled her gray eyes sourly.

“You could hit up Stan one of these days.”

“Stan?”

“From class.” Moose didn’t want to mention her job again at the risk of getting his head bitten off.

“Oh. Wait. The one with the boy band haircut. The big one.” He wasn’t as burly as Moose, but Stan was tallish and not too bad looking, when she thought about it.

“He thinks you’re cute.”

“Oh, geez…” Ethel flushed to the roots of her hair.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Moose… hello? You don’t… you don’t just hit up someone who regularly sees you naked.”

“What’s the big deal?” Moose shrugged again. 

“It’s like dating someone you work with. That never works.”

“I dunno. I don’t see the problem. He’s seen you naked. That gets the awkward part out of the way.” Ethel glared at him.

“Seriously?”

“Yup. News flash, Bee: Guys wonder what girls look like naked when we ask them out. It’s in our DNA. He’s seen you. He likes you. Bingo. Slam dunk.” Now he was enjoying baiting her. Ethel made a sound of disgust.

“So, what’s the point of having him ask me out if he likes me? He’ll just want to sleep with me? What’s the point of even going on a date, with that in mind?”

“Dates are nice. Go out a few times. Take in a game. Take in a movie. Then you hit it.”

“You. Are. A. Pig.”

Moose held up his hands. “Hey, you’re the one who poses naked.” The two older women sitting nearby raised their brows, giving away that they were eavesdropping. Ethel gave them a weak smile and cleared her throat.

“Don’t announce it to the world. You’re as bad as Mel.”

“Didn’t you just get done telling me she’s dinghy? Should I be a little insulted?”

“No. If it sounds right, though, then hey. There you go.” Moose threw a peanut at her.

“You’re mean.”

They both occupied themselves with laundry and their respective books and jockeyed for dryers. The afternoon slowed to a crawl while their clothing spun, and the sounds of the laundry thumping along and blurring colors in the glass doors was lulling Ethel halfway to sleep.

Moose wasn’t meticulous about folding. He gathered up his clothes and doubled it up just enough to fit it back into his large laundry sack. Ethel folded her clothing neatly and loaded it back up into her cart and packed her half-finished soda bottle into her large purse.

Moose watched her, still fascinated by her undergarments. She caught him looking again.

“Don’t tell me that you see London and France,” she told him dryly. 

“I don’t know. You’ve got some pretty spicy stuff, there.”

“This from the guy who owns a pair of Home Simpson boxers.” He flushed, and this time Ethel smirked. “Cute.”

“Don’t knock Homer.”

“I wasn’t.” She trundled her cart toward the door and nodded to him. “Later, gator.”

“Wait.” He hefted his sack over his shoulder like Santa Clause and followed her, beating her to the door. “Let me give you a ride.”

“You drove here?”

“I’ve got my truck.”

“Must be nice. Parking permits cost a grip. That’s why I left my car at home.”

“Sucks to try to get around.”

“The bus system is pretty good. Student discount on fare helps, too.” Ethel was used to getting by on a shoestring budget. Moose was an only child like she was, but he came from more money than she did, and he’d always been active in sports and had taken Midge out in style.

“Where do you live?”

“Montana Hall.”

“I’m in Goldwater,” he mentioned. “Not that far from me. It’s not out of my way.” He took her cart from her before she could protest, and he loaded her laundry sack in his truck bed, folding the cart shut. He clicked the remote on his keys, and she heard the doors click. “It’s open.”

“You don’t have to go out of your way.”

“I just said it’s not.”

“Okay. I appreciate it.” She wasn’t expecting it. They piled into his truck and when Moose revved the ignition, acid rock blared out of his speakers. She rolled down the window, since the truck had heated up parked in the sunny lot for two hours.  
“Your truck’s nice.”

“It gets me around.”

The ride home was pleasant. The breeze coming in ruffled her short black hair and felt good against her skin. “It’s a nice day for a drive,” she remarked.

“It is.” He turned to her. “Where do you wanna go for lunch?”

“Me?” She looked surprised. “Oh. I dunno. Downtown?”

“Chuck’s?” It was his favorite burger joint. Ethel nodded happily.

“Lead the way.”  
*

If anyone had told her a year ago she’d be sitting at a table inhaling a burger with the burliest, jockiest guy she knew growing up, a guy who’d done his share of teasing her when they were kids, she would have told them they were nuts. But there they were. Moose treated her to a loaded burger, and they shared a basket of fries.

“If this had been Midge, she would’ve gotten a salad, then eaten half of my burger,” Moose remarked.

“Where’s the fun in that? I like meat,” Ethel informed him. “When I’m in the mood to eat, I eat.”

“Not trying to keep your girlish figure?”

“This is girlish?” Ethel pointed out. “I can fit into my dad’s clothes, for crying out loud.”

“You’re thin!” he insisted. “A toothpick!”

“So’s my dad,” she clarified. “Both of my parents are tall.”

“My dad is. My mom’s kinda petite.” His expression was fond. “She can cook.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Heck, yeah. I love to eat!”

Ethel considered that a moment. So had Jughead. She’d baked him goodies once in a while to impress him, and he’d certainly been impressed by the treats, but not by her. It rankled.

“Could Midge cook?”  
“I don’t know. I usually took her out.”  
“That’s nice.”  
“I guess.” He inhaled a handful of fries dipped in the special sauce. “This is my kind of place. She’d hate it here.”

“What’s not to like?” Ethel waved her hand toward the back room. “They’ve got fooseball! All the best greasy spoons have fooseball!” Moose set down his burger and gave her a determined look.

“You. Play. Fooseball.” Ethel’s eyes narrowed, a dangerous gleam in their depths.

“Get ready.”

*

Ethel spun the rollers expertly, easily blocking Moose’s attempt for her goal. His little green players jockeyed from side to side, but she got the little ball past him through two rows, and she was threatening to score on him. “You’re not gonna catch me,” she promised.

“Someone thinks she has game,” Moose muttered. “Watch out, Bee!”

“Ooh. Ooh. There. There we go.” Her reflexes were fast, and she was enjoying the game, giving him a run for his money. He wasn’t going easy on her, and he got the ball past her blue row with one strong, well-timed flick of the wrist. “Not even, buddy!”

“Hey! What?” She scored on him! He looked down at the sound of the thump of the ball landing in his goal, then back up at her. “No way.”

“Hee.” She smirked at him.

“Another round. That one didn’t count.”

“It did too count!”

“Nope. Do-over.”

She beat him three out of four games. Moose thought he’d been hustled.

They went back to the table, and Ethel was flushed and happy. She finished the rest of her soda, having worked up a thirst. “That was fun.”

“Sure, it was. You beat the pants off me!”

“You’re still wearing pants,” she shrugged. “Next time, we play for laundry money.”

“Get ready to buy bleach.”  
*

He dropped her off at her dorm and helped her unload her laundry from his truck, and Ethel was almost sorry the afternoon was over; time had flown by hanging out with him.

“Thanks again.”

“No problem.” He watched her thoughtfully. “It was nice catching up.”

“See you ‘round.”

“Bye, Bee.” The nickname annoyed her slightly, but she didn’t correct him. A few of the residents watched them as he drove off, stares attracted by the loud music blaring from his truck. Some of them looked surprised to see Ethel getting out, and it occurred to her that maybe they thought the two of them were a couple.

“Put your eyes back in your heads,” she muttered under her breath. “Sheesh.”

She headed back upstairs to her dorm, and Melody was finally up and around, back to her old bubbly self. Music pumped from her computer speakers, and she was diligently blowing out her hair and putting on makeup. The room reeked of Curve and leave-in conditioner. “Someone’s back to the world of the living,” Ethel remarked. 

“It’s about time you got back. Get ready.”

“For what?”

“You’re going out with me and Val to a mixer.”

“Oh, God, no!”

“C’mon!” Melody whined, pouting. “Go out with us. You never want to go out. Don’t be such a wallflower. Get dressed in one of those outfits we bought, and I’ll do your hair.”  
“Mel, I _hate_ those house parties. I never have anything to say.”

“So? I’ll be with you! It’s not like you won’t have me to talk to, and Val’s nice. You’ve met her. Kumi’s going.”

“It’ll feel weird.”

“No. It’ll be _fun_ ,” Melody corrected her. “Go. Hop in the shower. Wash your hair. You can use some of my Joico.”

“Melody, I don’t know.”

“You’re going. It’ll be great. And we’ll get you DRUNK!!!!”

“Eeeeee. Yikes.” Ethel felt a sinking sense of doom, but her roommate was determined, and somehow, she let herself over the course of the next hour be cajoled and bullied into a dress she still couldn’t believe she’d bought. Melody nattered in her ear cheerfully, painting Ethel’s nails, blow-drying, curling and spraying her hair, and making up her face. Ethel felt like she was playing dress-up with her four-year-old cousin.

“Look up,” Melody coached, and Ethel obeyed as Mel carefully drew liquid eyeliner under her lower ridge of lashes. “You’re gonna look so hot.”

“I feel goofy. I’m gonna look like I’m trying too hard.”

“Uh-uh. Hot. You’ll look hot, and you can trust me, because I wouldn’t steer you wrong. And you’re gonna talk to guys and give a cute one your number. And we’re going to drink shots and cheap beer.” Ethel sighed and wrinkled her nose.

“Ew.”

“What? You don’t like beer?”

“Not really.” Sampling one at one of Veronica’s parties while her parents had been out of town hadn’t been a pleasant memory. It tasted musky and slightly bitter, ruining the taste of the other foods, and she had a dim memory of Fangs Fogarty having three too many and throwing up in the pool. Ethel shuddered.

“There will be other things to drink. Just have fun.” Melody paused to do a little dance. “You’re finally going out with me! I get to take my roomie out of the dungeon tonight!” She leaned down and gave Ethel a squishy hug and sloppy kiss on the cheek.  
“Ew!”

“I’m so happy!” And that made up Ethel’s mind. If a night of social awkwardness, slightly poor judgment and bad alcohol made her roommate happy, who was Ethel to deny her?

*

Moose came back to an empty dorm as he keyed his way in. He sighed raggedly as he flopped his laundry sack onto his narrow bed. At least the room didn’t smell like dirty socks anymore. Moose was about to unpack and put away his clothes when his eyes landed on a note taped to Ambrose’s computer monitor.

_Headed to a party at Gamma House. Starts around seven. Come out if you want._

Moose grunted and shrugged. A party sounded fine. The productive part of the day was already over, and he could finish reading his boring novel tomorrow, couldn’t he? He gathered up his shower caddy and towel and spread out a pair of clean jeans across his bed.

He showered, lingering long enough to contemplate the night. Ethel had called it “playing the field.” He guessed he needed to get back “out there” at some point, and heck, it was a big campus. Moose realized that he wasn’t checking his phone messages as often, lately. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

Somehow, the best part of his day had already gone by, credit of a gray-eyed friend from his childhood.

He shaved, doused on some Old Spice spray, gelled his hair into an agreeable shape that said “available” and slipped into his favorite shirt. Moose crammed his feet into his AND1’s and locked the door behind him. It was time to howl.

 

*

 

An hour later, Ethel found herself being tugged along by her roommate, following Melody’s bandmate, Valerie over the lawn of the huge frat house. She felt self-conscious and almost chilly in the little outfit Melody selected for her, and she felt people were staring at the three of them. Her heels sank slightly into the turf as they walked, and Ethel regretted the shoes already, wishing she had on her Skechers.

“This is going to be so great!” Melody squealed, bouncing and looping her arm through Ethel’s. Her roomie’s outfit left nothing to the imagination, and she was amused to see that she matched Val, wearing little tops sprayed with leopard spots. Valerie showed off her assets in a tiny pair of denim shorts strategically frayed and slashed with a razor blade, and her legs were shod in black fishnets. She wore a little headband with fuzzy leopard ears, and Melody wore a similar pair. They marched up the steps to the porch, where two guys were already drinking from Solo cups on a beat-up looking couch.

“Is this a costume party?”

“No. We’re part of the act. That’s why you don’t have to pay a cover to get in. She’s with me,” Melody told the big guy in a baseball cap embroidered with Gamma House’s letters and insignia.

“That’s fine.” He looked Ethel up and down. “You in the band?”

“Band?” Ethel asked cluelessly.

“Nope. She’s just a groupie,” Val told him tartly. “We’re already set up in the back.”

“Head on in. Drinks are in the kitchen.” Ethel felt her stomach twist in anticipation. People were already staring at her, and she felt naked. She spotted Kumi hanging out with two girls she recognized from her corridor. Their eyes widened when they saw her.   
“Whoa! Ethel?” She waved weakly.

“Um… hi.”

“That’s you?” Kumi was incredulous. She reached out and gingerly touched the strap of her dress. “Omigod. Look at you. You don’t look like you.” Ethel’s cheeks flamed and she felt her skin tingle with embarrassment.  
“I know. Shut up.”

“No! No, it’s different! It works! Get it, girlfriend!” Ethel shook her head and crossed her arms across her middle. “Someone’s giving out her number tonight!”

“Geez…”

“Let’s get a drink! Then we have to warm up,” Melody told her. “You can mingle a little while Val and I do a mic check.”

“You’re playing tonight?” That was a detail she’d left out when they were getting ready.

“Yup. We’re gonna tear it up. I’m so excited you came!” Melody’s eyes sparkled, and Ethel gave her an indulgent smile. “It means a lot to me.”

“I’m all over coming out to see you play, Mel. But next time, I’m wearing my jeans.”

“Stop. Here. Have a drink.”

“Are you having one with me?”

“No. Not yet. Gotta protect my pipes.” She twisted off the cap from a bottle of water and fortified herself. “You, however, can have that drink.” She led her to the keg, and Melody expertly pumped it, filling a red Solo cup almost to the brim. Ethel shuddered as she handed it to her.

“Just. One.” Melody clapped her hands. Val chuckled. Just as she took her first sip, deciding silently that it wasn’t any better than she remembered it, Josie came inside from the back patio door. Her makeup was wild, complete with loud green eye shadow and body glitter. She wore leopard skin boots and fishnets like Val’s, and a little ripped-up black crop top with her name printed in leopard print letters across her chest. She wore her short red hair spiked and teased up high, and her little headband also sported cat’s ears. The house began to fill up with houseguests, a slow trickle at first, but within about twenty minutes, the noise from the living room began to drown out civilized conversation.

Despite a strong start, Ethel began to feel like a wallflower again. She was shy usually, and she didn’t know how to “mingle” in a house full of people she didn’t know. Her friends drifted off, and Melody and the other Pussycats were warming up for their set. The sun had already set, and the yard was lit with torches and lanterns, giving it a warm glow. A couple of tables were laid out with bowls of Chex mix, chips, beer nuts, Corn nuts, and jello shots. Ethel was glad she’d eaten well that afternoon, and she wondered briefly what Moose was up to.

Their new, tentative friendship came out of left field. Maybe they hadn’t initially hit it off, but it was nice to have a familiar face from home so far away from it.

“Hey. Ethel? Is that you?” A gentle tap on her shoulder drew her attention to Stan, who was staring at her with interest. “Wow. This is you in clothes.”

“Oh, God.” She blushed furiously and waved him off. “This isn’t really me in clothes. Not what I normally go for. My roommate dressed me.” She eyed his hooded sweatshirt enviously. “You look nice and warm.” Stan grinned and eyed her.

“You look amazing. That’s some dress.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you come here with friends?”

“My roomie. She’s actually part of the act.” He beamed. 

“Seriously?” He peered out at the yard, and Melody pointed to the drum kit, where Melody was setting up her cymbal stand and adjusting a speaker. “THAT’S your roommate?”

“Yup.”

“What was it like meeting her for the first time?”

“I thought the resident committee had made a mistake. We’re complete opposites, but she’s really sweet. I’ve even gotten used to the My Little Ponies everywhere.”

“You’re kidding…”

“Ohhhhh… no.” He chuckled and eyed her cup, still mostly full.

“You just get here?”

“Pretty much. Are you here with anyone?”

“I was out getting snacks. I live here.” 

“Oh. Wow. I didn’t know you belonged to a frat.” He shrugged. 

“I’m a sophomore. I pledged last year and got in. You can move into the house after your first year. It’s been pretty decent. Beats the dorms.”

“Sometimes it’s so loud, I can’t hear myself think,” Ethel confessed. Stan leaned back against the counter, watching her intently, and Ethel wasn’t used to having a guy stand so close. They were leaning in toward one another in an attempt to not shout as the noise level in the house grew.

“What’s your major?”

“Liberal arts. I want to teach.”

“Kids or adults?”

“Either. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I want to be like my idol when I graduate, my history teacher from high school. Greta Grundy, the art school’s dean, is actually her sister.” He nodded in recognition.  
“Cool. I’m going into civil engineering.”

“Wow.” Then it occurred to her. “Why are you taking figure drawing?”

He shrugged. “Needed an elective. Seemed like a sound choice. It beats taking another history course.” He smirked at her briefly. “Thought it might be a great way to meet girls.”

_Oh, God._ Ethel squelched a groan. So, that’s how it was going to be. Her earlier conversation with Moose came back to her, and she wanted to reach back and slap him. “You could have ended up with a male model.” He cringed and shuddered. Ethel laughed.

“Then I would have dropped it for Econ.”

“Wimp.”

They chatted companionably, and as the girls continued to warm up, Melody went off on a drum solo that showed her considerable skill on the skins. Ethel was impressed. They drifted outside early to get a jump on seats close to the band. Ethel wasn’t that interested in her beer. Stan noticed she wasn’t drinking it.

“Have a jello shot.”

“Are they good?”

“Have one. I’ll take that off your hands.” He relieved her of the beer and downed about a third of it, instead handing her a little plastic condiment cup of lime jello. It looked innocent enough, she supposed. She tipped it up to her mouth and tossed it back, wiggling the rest of the gelatin out of the cup with her tongue. Stan looked impressed. “Attagirl. Managed that fine for a beginner.”

“Whoa. Wow. I can’t even taste any alcohol.”

“It’ll hit you. The buzz sneaks up on you, but it’s strong when it does. You can get pretty messed up on these.”

“Maybe just one more, then.”

“Knock yourself out, babe.” Stan was a gentleman and handed her another. Melody waved at her cheerfully.

“Try the red ones!” she called out. Her voice had that sing-song quality it took on when she about to find some trouble. Ethel wondered what she was getting herself into. Stan lingered close, and she felt like less of a wallflower, enjoying the insulation of not having to stand around by herself in the kitchen.

*

 

Moose fished in his pocket for three dollars cover at the front door. The party was already jumping, if the crowd in the living room was anything to judge, and there was a short line forming at the keg. He waved to a couple of girls he recognized from his English comp class. They stared at him appreciatively, taking in his slightly clingy Body Armor long-sleeved tee; the black compression knit set off his fair good looks and outlined his muscles. Moose wasn’t much of a clothes horse, and he didn’t spend a lot of time on grooming. Midge had him trained where his hair was concerned, but he didn’t fret much otherwise. He worked with what he had.

Ambrose joined him just as he reached the plastic cups, slapping him on the back and shaking his hand. “Hoped you were gonna get here soon, bro. Got a band out back. Girl band, from Midvale, and they’re smokin’ hot!” Moose grinned.  
“Nice. Who are they?”

“Josie and the Pussycats. Sounds familiar for some reason.”

“Yeah.” Moose vaguely remembered seeing their flyer at Riverdale’s bowling alley and on the bulletin board at his mom’s favorite health food store. He heard them warming up, and they started up a mean drum solo that promised a few noise complaints from the neighbors before the night was up. He took his turn at the keg, and he headed back to the living room with Ambrose for a moment to watch the Ultimate Fighting match on the big plasma screen. The party was shaping up to be decent.  
A few girls approached him, asking him if he belonged to the fraternity and remarking that they’d seen him on the field at a few home games. Moose puffed up with pride, glad to talk about his favorite subject. A tall, slender brunette reached up and stroked the sleeve of his shirt, giving him a pleasant shiver. “I like this shirt. Looks cozy.”

“Outlet mall. Riverdale.”

“You probably work out all the time.”

“I’m in the gym a lot.” It went without saying. She giggled.

“My workout involves arm lifts with the remote.” She eyed him over the rim of her cup. “Maybe you could show me some workouts some time.” He felt himself flush, self-conscious with the brazen flirting.

“Uh…”

He was distracted by a familiar laugh coming from the yard. “Um… could you… excuse me?” He held up his finger and backed away. “See you!” He wandered outside, needing some air. It was close in there, and it was just… weird having such close scrutiny that he didn’t really ask for.

He saw the band and decided Ambrose was right; they were definitely hot. The redhead was warming up on her Fender Strat, playing a few riffs varying from Jimi Hendrix to Springsteen. They were all fit and decked out in outfits that looked a little drafty. The blonde on the drums caught his eye as she toyed with her makeup, fluffing her blown-out, feathered waves; he chuckled under his breath as she turned and did a little “does my butt look big in these?” check while her dark-skinned bandmate shook her head.  
He heard that laugh again, unrestrained and hearty, and again, it was so familiar. He turned toward the source, and from the back, he saw a couple standing near the band’s set-up, recognizing Stan from his art class. He called out to him. “Stan! Yo!” Stan turned and nodded, smiling, but a hint of annoyance flitted over his features. Moose headed over with his cup, not wanting to be rude. His companion looked nice from the back, and he was struck by her long, slender, creamy legs and the way her little white cotton slip dress clung to her reed-thin body. Her back was elegant and smooth, and she had a tight little rump. Her short hair was styled in a fluffy little slip with volume teased into the crown, and she laughed at something else Stan said.

“Ambrose said you were having a mixer,” Moose mentioned casually, clapping Stan on the shoulder. Stan obligingly low-fived him and fist-bumped, but he looked like he didn’t want to be interrupted from his company. Moose went to introduce himself. “Hey, I’m Moose Mas-“ Ethel stared back at him, stiffening with shock. “-on.”

“Oh. Hi.” She waved weakly, feeling embarrassed all over again. Her hands went instinctively to her skirt hem, trying to pull it down a few centimeters, but it was a useless effort. Why did he have to have that effect on her?   
Moose’s mouth went dry. _Damn._ Ethel Muggs. That wasn’t Ethel. It couldn’t be, not looking like a walking scandal in that tiny white dress, trimmed with a hint of lace around the sweetheart neckline and around the hem and hugging her body like a glove. Melody styled her with an artful hand, giving her a smoky eyes and bringing out her knife-sharp cheekbones with just a hint of blush. Her legs… they went on forever, brought to their full potential by the kicky little high-heeled sandals.  
That wasn’t her mouth, glossed in a dark raisin pout, speaking to him. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

“Neither did I. Ambrose left me a note.”

“I invited him,” Stan mentioned. “I didn’t know he lived with you.”

“What made you come tonight?” Moose asked Ethel. She tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear nervously.

“Mel. She’s the drummer. My roomie, remember?” Moose stared where she was pointing and then remembered what she’d told him earlier.  
“My Little Ponies?”

“The very same.” Stan laughed.

“Yeah. Well… go ahead and help yourself to some beer,” Stan told him cheerfully. His eyes told Moose, _Fuck off. Quick cockblocking and find your own girl._

“I’m good,” Moose replied, holding up his full cup.

“There’s jello shots,” Ethel told him. Her smile was sly, and Moose realized that she must have had a couple. Just like it had come back to her, Moose recalled their earlier talk.

_News flash, Bee: Guys wonder what girls look like naked when we ask them out. It’s in our DNA. He’s seen you. He likes you. Bingo. Slam dunk._  
Suddenly, that conversation didn’t appeal to him anymore.


	4. Buzzed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moose is a gentleman. Ethel is more popular than she thought. And Jello shots are stronger than they look…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, an update. 
> 
> I revised this chapter substantially once I realized a few things:
> 
> 1\. The story went in darker directions than I wanted it to, and I was telling a story I didn’t originally intend, namely of Ethel becoming a victim. And it wasn’t fair, because I love Ethel. She’s a sweetie. This was meant to be a rom-com, and it became a Lifetime movie/ after school special.
> 
> 2\. I painted myself into a corner. In my original chapter four, Ethel is basically attacked at a party while she’s tipsy. In the real world – and yes, this IS fanfiction, I get it – she wouldn’t just walk off into the sunset with her knight in shining armor and everything would be hunky-dory. That didn’t feel genuine once I went back and did a re-read. 
> 
> 3\. I had no way of continuing this that wasn’t just Ethel pressing charges against her attacker, because HELL YES, SHE WOULD HAVE. 
> 
> 4\. Melody is a little bit goofy, but I think she would have good enough intentions and be protective enough of her roommate not to let her too far out of her sight. Ditto for Kumi. I didn’t give them enough credit when I wrote the first draft. 
> 
> 5\. It was triggering. I didn’t have any warnings, and it was VERY TRIGGERING. I don't want to make anyone sad or feel like this isn't safe to read.
> 
> So, a revision. This tweaks Chapter Four from the second half forward and a big patch of Chapter Five. A sixth and seventh chapter will follow once I revise, because I will have left myself a path out of the corner without tracking through my fresh paint. 
> 
> To anyone who commented on this fic at ALL, thank you SO, SO MUCH. This fandom doesn’t have a lot of fiction or art based on the secondary characters, and when it does, they seldom get ANY traffic or feedback. It’s been fun talking to people offline and in the comments about their head canons and opinions about Ethel and Moose. I love this pairing. So, here we go.

Ethel swayed to the music, knowing her ears would be ringing in the morning. The second likely culprit would be the innocent looking Jello shots, which she’d lost count on after five. She felt deliciously tipsy, things she normally would have found annoying became hysterical, and Stan Gold was looking better than she remembered from the light of day.

At some point, the crowd began dancing in the yard, no easy feat for Ethel with her pointy little heels. They inevitably ended up perched on the patio, wrapped up in Stan’s hoodie. The cool grass tickled her bare feet, and her throat was hoarse from laughter. Everything around her was a warm blur, and every time she looked at Stan, his smile was knowing and smug; he raised his eyebrows in amusement at half the things she said. Ethel wasn’t certain if that was a _good_ thing, but she decided to just go with it. 

She felt his eyes all over her, and it was unnerving… yet thrilling. Her cheeks felt warm and the strange flush of male attention was completely foreign to her. So this was how it felt, she mused. Betty, Veronica, Nancy, Midge… all of them were used to being ogled and admired in passing, earning whistles and cat-calls, giving out their cell numbers and Instagrams to interested males. Jughead treated her like an afterthought for as long as she remembered, and she did so much for him to get so little in return. He never made her feel this ticklish excitement.

Then again, it could just be the alcohol…

Stan was all right, she decided. Her dorm mates circulated around the party and periodically checked up on her. Kumi winked at her and gave her the thumbs-up in passing, initially. She caught up to her later as Ethel exited the rest room from freshening up. She had blotted her throat and chest with cold water to calm the angry flush of blotches and to revive herself, fanning her feverish cheeks and straightening her hair. Her scalp and nape sweated and made her hair slightly flyaway; strands and tendrils kept working their way into her eyes or mouth every time a strong breeze blew or when she was outside dancing.

Kumi was waiting outside the door and stopped her, lightly clasping her elbow. “Hey, you.”

“Hey,” Ethel grinned. “What’s up?”

“What’s up with you? And with him?” Kumi inquired. “Where do you know him from?”

“Work. Class,” Ethel clarified. “He draws me.” Kumi nodded, then sobered.

“Oh, shit. You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Ethel chuckled, shrugging in exaggeration. “THAT class.”

“Girl, you’re crazy. Be careful, okay?” 

“It’s no big *hic* deal,” she insisted, gently rapping herself between the breasts with her fist to clear a burp.

“Had a few?”

“More than a few. Feelin’ fiiiiiiine,” she emphasized. Ethel swayed slightly on her feet. Kumi reached for her again instinctively.

“You’re tore up.”

“Yup. No pain.” She couldn’t feel her teeth.

“You okay to hang out with him? Want to head back to the dorms with us when you’re ready to go?”

“I came with Melody and Val. I figure I can go home with them.”

“I think they’re headed out now, actually.” Ethel looked confused.

“Oh. I figured they were going to be here longer.”

“Josie said she and Val have a long drive tomorrow to New Hampshire. They’re headed out in about an hour.”

“Okay. I’ll figure it out.”

“I’ll just stop to come get you. Unless you decide to let Tall, Dark and Fratty take you back, but if you’re not sure about him, come find me,” Kumi advised. “I want to make sure you get back safe and sound!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Ethel saluted her in goofy fashion, mock-stern expression in place.

“Hey,” Stan murmured from down the corridor. “Wondered where you were hiding.” Ethel smirked.

“She got lost,” Kumi joked.

“I’ll have to keep a better eye on her,” Stan suggested, winking back. He reached for Ethel’s hand and tugged her along with him, making her blush all the way up to her forehead. She grinned over her shoulder at Kumi, and Kumi shrugged and winked.

That was how she ended up back in the yard, dancing like a fool. She didn’t realize how many people were watching her, commenting on the leggy newcomer in their midst. Melody watched her from behind her drum kit, occasionally swigging from a sweating water bottle as she played up a storm. Josie wailed a cover of No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs,” followed shortly by Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” 

“Look at her go,” Melody giggled beneath the cacophony. It was great to see her loosening up a little. That wasn’t the same Ethel who showed up the first day at their dorm in a peasant dress and Birkenstocks. Stan wasn’t leaving her side, either. _That was awfully fast,_ Melody thought, noting how his hands slipped around her waist somewhat possessively… then again, maybe he was just trying to hold her steady. Ethel was listing a little to the side. 

Mel wasn’t the only one who noticed. Moose peered at them over the edge of his Solo cup, leaning against the frame of the patio door. He heard Ethel’s frequent bursts of laughter. Her body was relaxed as she danced, but she was beginning to slump a little against Stan for balance, telling him she’d had more than enough to drink. Her cheeks glowed, and her smile was bleary, but cute. Moose relaxed slightly when he saw Stan’s lips moving, telling her _Suit yourself_ instead of pressing the issue.

He remembered her from school dances at junior and senior high, frequently occupying the bleachers, definitely a wallflower. Every slow song found her slinking off to the periphery of the floor, idly sipping a paper cup of Coke and toying with her phone, looking envious and bored. Moose remembered the feel of Midge’s hair tickling his lips as they slow-dragged around the floor, her warm curves plastered against him with her throwing occasional smug looks at her friends over her shoulder. It had always been like that since they hooked up. Midge and Moose. Moose and Midge. He enjoyed the convenience of never lacking a dance date or someone to snuggle with at the movies on a Friday night. What had it been like for Ethel?

And why the hell was Stan being so grabby? Moose narrowed his eyes as Stan tugged Ethel against him, getting awfully familiar and whispering something in her ear. He saw her mouth “What?” before he leaned in again, pausing in dancing with him for a minute. Old trick. His hands roamed her lower back as he spoke. Moose felt annoyed at his lack of thought for personal space.

“What’s goin’ on there?” Ambrose demanded, nodding to him as he came out to join him, nursing a half-finished Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

“Ethel, pretending she told her parents she was going to a slumber party,” Moose commented dryly.

“Out after curfew, wearing the naughty outfit under the parent-safe one and putting on the makeup in the car?”

“Bingo.”

“She looks cute.” 

“She looks cold,” Moose countered. Ambrose leveled him with a look. “What? You see that tiny dress? It’s like a handkerchief.”

“Suuuuuure.” Ambrose took a pull from his bottle. “You sound a little concerned.”

“She might catch the sniffles.”

“Looks like she’s taking applications over there to help her warm up.”

“Fuck off.”

“Yup. Figured as much.” Ambrose chuckled. “You like her.”

“It’s Ethel. Get out of here with that shit.” But Moose felt annoyance rising, unsure if it was toward Ambrose or himself. Because, maybe he needed to give her a little more credit. 

“Let’s see… you’ve been parking it over here, watching her all night, you’re getting pissed off that Stan’s over there making a move-“

“They’re just dancing.”

“That’s a move he’s making there, my friend. You’re kidding yourself and me if you think they’re just having a friendly chat.”

“So?”

“Been making the rounds since you got here?”

“More or less.” He’d given up on mingling other than girls occasionally approaching him and gushing to him about his game on the football field. It still felt weird being openly flirted with; the attention was nice, but he didn’t see anything he wanted on the menu.

Except long, graceful limbs and tight little curves barely covered by a tiny white slip dress. Ethel’s long, narrow face seemed softer with the makeup and flippy hair, and her gray eyes had a sparkle that Stan apparently put there, something that chafed him. Stan was leaning in toward her again, his fingers brushing her hair back from her ear so he could murmur something into it again. Moose fumed.

“Right. I’ll just leave you to your stalking while I get a refill. Want anything?”

“Nah.” He’d barely started his second one. It tasted like paste on his tongue.

“Might creep her out if she catches you staring too long.”

“I’m not staring. I’m watching.”

“Right. I’m getting creeped out. Later, bro.”

“See ya.” Ambrose escaped back to the kitchen, invading a conversation about UFC with enthusiasm. Moose nursed his black thoughts and continued his vigil on the patio. The Pussycats began another set after a round of drinks and a few nibbles from the snack table. Melody brushed past him briefly, then stopped, poking him in the side. Moose yelped and his beer cup splashed a little over the rim.

“Hey, you! Why aren’t you out there having fun?”

“I’m having fun,” he argued, shrugging.

“Not here, Blondie Bear,” she chided him, grinning. His brows flew up into his hairline. Blondie Bear? That was new. “Oh, wait… Ethel said you go by Moose?”

“Yep.”

“That’s so cute!” she informed him, scrunching up her nose as she poked him again.

“You can really bang those skins,” he told her, wanting to make decent small talk. She was dingy, but nice enough and a distraction from the scene out in the yard.

“Aw, that’s sweet!” Her voice had a funny sing-song quality, and when she was amused about something, it grew slightly shrill, but Ethel was right. Melody had a puppy dog quality about her that you couldn’t dislike. He wanted to pat her on her overstyled, platinum blonde head. “So, what’s up? No date?”

“Nope.”

“Why aren’t you talking to Ethel?” she demanded, folding her arms beneath her breasts, letting her drumsticks stick out. 

“Uh…”

“You should talk to her. You know each other from high school, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Elementary school, actually.”

“Wow. That’s like your whole life, and now you’re in college together. It’s like, fate, or something. You’d have tons of stuff to talk about!” Melody babbled on. “Did you guys know you were going to the same school this fall?”

“Nope.”

“Wow! That’s a trip. It’s a small world.”

“Where are you from, again?” he asked politely.

“Midvale. The Pussycats played gigs all over town, and we played Central City and Pembroke once in a while, too. We didn’t end up in Riverdale too often, but there were a couple of venues we liked.”

“Venues?” he inquired. “Like where?”

“The Garlic Festival,” she told him. “Moe’s Coffeehouse. Segharini’s.”

“You call those venues?”

“Hey, a gig’s a gig,” she sniffed, poking him in the ribs with one of her sticks. “Don’t knock it. Anything to get our name out there.”

“What else are you planning to do with your band?”

“Record and tour, one of these days. I still want to go to school, but we’ll see how that pans out.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wasn’t really into high school, but my parents wanted me to try to get a degree.”

“What’s your major?”

“Undecided!” she told him proudly, sappy grin in place. Moose silently clapped his hand over his mouth in a slow face-scrub, then nodded with feigned interest. “Well, actually, it was music. I don’t know. I want to perform, but I don’t want to teach it.”

“You could do both,” he suggested. She gave him a girlish look of wonder.

“You think so?” Moose shrugged.

“Why not?”

“God, you’re right. You’re smart. Now I know why Ethel likes you,” she insisted. “I’m gonna go get a jello shot. You want one?” Moose almost choked on a sip of beer. He flushed furiously and tried to compose himself.

“Uh… nah. I’m good.”

“See ya!” she chirped, and she switched off, costume tail swinging with her bombshell strut. Moose stared after her, wondering what the heck just happened.

“Likes me?” he muttered aloud. “Geez…” That redirected his attention to Ethel, who, to his consternation, was snuggled up to Stan, huddling under the crook of his arm. Oookaaaaaay… that was enough of that. He tossed back the rest of the beer and crushed the cup, chucking it into a large trash barrel. Moose propelled himself from the doorframe and headed for the yard. He felt his pulse quicken for a moment as he approached them. Stan nuzzled her ear. That tore it.

“Hey.” He sidled up to Ethel, flanking her other side and rocking on his heels as they surveyed the yard. Ethel looked up at him blearily, questions in her gray eyes.

“What’s up?” she asked cheerfully.

“What’s up with you two?” he countered.

“Hangin’ out. Listening to the band,” Stan informed him dryly. His smile was tight and forced, but his eyes practically shouted _Fuck off_. He tightened his arm around Ethel, who peered back at him, confused at being jostled. He grinned down at her, and she gave him a loopy grin back.

“What’s up with you?” Ethel inquired of Moose. He looked cute, but she was puzzled by his annoyed look, staring daggers at Stan. But his face relaxed as he met her gaze, and Moose shrugged.

“Mingling.” Ambrose’s words were helpful at moments like these. “Um, Ethel… can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Huh? Oh. Like, now?”

“Yeah. Now would be good.” Moose reached for her wrist and gently, but insistently tugged her out of her cozy nook. Stan released her reluctantly, but Ethel turned back to him and mouthed _Give me a minute_. Stan nodded and watched them retreat a few yards, then disappear into the house. 

“Um, where are we going?”

“Not far,” Moose offered. She stumbled slightly to keep up with him, thankful that she also had a long stride. They wove through the party guests and headed for the back hallway. Moose backed away from random couples and escaped with her into a darkened, empty room. “Ethel, how much have you had?” he asked once she gently closed the door and faced him.

“Eh. A few shots.”

“A few. Like, one or two?”

“A few,” she shrugged, but that motion knocked her slightly off-balance, and she stumbled into the wall. “Oof…” He reached out to steady her, clasping her arm in his large, sturdy grip.

“You’re a lightweight,” he muttered. “Stan’s getting kind of close, isn’t he?”

“I dunno. I guess,” she replied, then hiccupped. “Geez… there I go again. *hic* Ugh… what’s the big deal?”

“So… is he hitting on you?”

“I don’t know. Is he? You tell me.” She chuckled and punched him in the arm. “What’s the big deal if he is? You’d know better than me. Why?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you been watching me?”

“No,” he lied hastily. “Still… just seems like you got kinda cozy with him pretty fast.”

“I didn’t ‘get cozy’ with him,” she argued, but her cheeks flushed again, and she pulled away from him, staring at the floor and crossing her arms. “You make me sound like a tramp.” It was Moose’s turn to stammer and blush.

“That’s not what I meant, Bee! Don’t make me sound like a dick!”

“You’re doing that all by your lonesome. And don’t call me that. I hate that. I don’t want anyone else knowing what everybody called me when we were kids. I’m not ‘Big Ethel’ anymore. I never wanted to be.” Her voice was vulnerable, and when she looked back up at him, her eyes were pissed off. “That’s probably all I ever was to you, wasn’t I?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Ethel… look, you’ve had a few. I’m just looking out for you. How are you getting home tonight?”

“I got here on foot. I came with friends. And why is everyone asking me that?” She thought back on Kumi’s offer. “I’m not walking home from kindergarten, Moose. I’m a grown woman. I can make it back home from a party.” Her chin tilted stubbornly. “Or Stan can take me.”

“Or I can take you,” he countered.

“Did you take your truck? How many have you had?” she pried. She knew she sounded bratty, but it was a fair question. She hated the idea of him getting into a wreck or a DUI.

“I walked, too. And I hardly drank anything.”

“Why not?” she pressed.

“Not in the mood.”

“It’s a party. Let loose. Have a good time, Moose. I am.”

“I can see that. Don’t get carried away, Ethel.”

“I’m not,” she told him indignantly. “I’m fine.”

“Did Melody talk you into that dress?”

“Maybe. But I like it,” she insisted.

“That’s fine. I like it, too. But don’t let Stan talk you out of it.”

“Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa… what’s that? Come again?” She planted her hands on her narrow hips and shifted her weight to one leg, the image of defiance. “What’s your deal? You’re not my dad!”

“Nope. I’m not as drunk as you, either.”

“I’m not *hic* drunk,” she tossed back.

“Um. I rest my case.” Moose sighed. “I’m not trying to-“

“Yes. You are.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“It might be better if you didn’t. What’s all this protective stuff? Why are you so concerned? It’s no big deal. Stan’s just being friendly. I’m just being social. There’s no problem here. It’s a party. I had a few. I’m out past curfew. And you,” she told him, poking him in his broad chest with her finger, “heed to lighten up and have a good time, like me.” 

Her words triggered a reaction she never expected, and it was immediate.

He closed his hand over her pointing one, curling his fingers around it and flattening it against his chest. “What?” she squeaked as she watched his blue eyes dilate, watched his other hand drift up to her jaw, and with the lightest of touches, tipped it up to him as he brushed his lips over hers in a tender, searching kiss. Ethel’s moan got lost in the sweet, warm rush of his breath misting over her lips and of the liquid heat of that contact. She felt her eyes drift shut and her fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt, and her heart began to pound, cold sweat and goosebumps assailing her. The kiss was a sliding, velvety caress that made her tingle everywhere, and she could smell the heady, masculine scent of his cologne, warm skin, and male pheromones.

This was how it felt. It hit her like lightning, the oft-wondered question, how it felt to kiss someone out of brazen attraction. Whether she would do it right. How it would taste. How it would progress and where she would place her hands. They decided not to heed her commands to stay down at her sides. His throat felt firm and hot, and her palm smoothed over the plane of his jaw, discovering sandy stubble.

It ended too soon. His hands pushed her back abruptly before she even registered that they were circling her waist. “What?” she squeaked again.

“No. Uh-uh. I’m sorry. Sorry, Ethel. I… I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she asked impatiently, moving toward him again, but he backed off, looking flustered. His eyes flitted away from her, and he sighed loudly.

“This wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Why?” she repeated.

“Ethel. You’ve had a few. I wouldn’t want you to think this was a bad idea in the morning.”

“Morning’s not that far away,” Ethel mentioned. “Technically in another half an hour.” He noticed the digital clock’s scarlet display in the dark and sighed. “If it’s a bad idea, then why did you do it?”

“I… I guess… just… you… I had to. I wanted to,” he hedged. “Don’t be mad.”

“Only if you stop,” she complained. She hugged herself and stared into his eyes, chewing on her lip.

“Ethel.” He shook his head, and the awkwardness, mingled with unsatisfied arousal, hung between them like a line of dirty laundry. “It was wrong of me to do that.”

“It was wrong. For you to do that with _me_.” Her eyes and voice flattened, and Moose swore to himself.

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Sure sounds like it from here,” she threw back. Ethel turned on her heel and yanked open the door, making her escape.

“Ethel!” he snapped. “Aw, c’mon! Don’t…!”

“Go mess with someone else’s mind,” she muttered loudly, stalking down the corridor and weaving through the crowd, drawing a few stares. Moose followed her at a more sedate pace, imagining that he could see steam rising from her as she left. Her gait was sharp, long, and pissed, posture stiff and remarkably upright for someone full of Jello and vodka.

“Ethel,” he muttered. “Damn it!” She was heading back to the kitchen, out the patio door…

… straight back to Stan, who pushed himself up from the side of the house as soon as she entered his sight. His arm snaked back around her, and Moose knew it was a lost cause. Stan glanced up briefly and caught his eye, then shrugged at him.

She was lost to him, because he wouldn’t take advantage of her. Moose growled under his breath. That hadn’t gone well…

Stan nuzzled her ear again, and she saw her make the universal gesture of _I’m cold_ , rubbing her arms in exaggeration and bouncing a little on her feet. Stan held out his hoodie to her, letting her shrug into the floppy sleeves, and he tugged her back against him, arms locked around her waist. They both went back to listening to the band, and Moose decided he’d seen enough.

He made terse, brief goodbyes and stalked out the front door. Ambrose looked up from a UFC match on the plasma screen, making watch-checking motions at him and throwing up his hands. Moose shook his head and waved back, done for the night. Ambrose watched his large silhouette shrink as he headed back toward the main campus, booking it as fast as his long legs would take him.

“Shoot,” he muttered. 

*

Stan brought her another shot of lime jello, even after she begged off. Her tongue grew numb to the alcohol, and it slid smoothly and coolly down her throat. The sounds around her were muffled, despite the cacophony of chatter and blaring television in the house, and the continuing concert out back. She saw Melody, flushed and wild-haired behind the drum kit, and she admired her stamina. She rocked to the music, and she felt Stan behind her still, arms resting around her waist. The pressure over her abdomen was almost annoying, and she was growing too warm.

“I need a minute,” she told him, gently prying herself loose.

“What?”

“I need a minute,” she shouted back over the noise, and she hated how bitchy her voice sounded to her own ears, but she felt stifled. 

“You okay?”

“Fine. I’m okay.”

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“Just inside for a minute.” She didn’t remain to share any details, and she made a beeline to the bathroom again. Ethel circumvented the same people in the corridor that didn’t appear to have moved. She nodded to Kumi, who was ensconced on the couch beside a beefy soccer player named Mike. Ethel was pleased; he seemed decent, and her friend looked content. All the more reason why she wouldn’t hassle her with a plan to go home with her, Ethel decided.

She made it into the bathroom, thankful it was unoccupied, and she locked it behind her before making a mad dash for the commode. She managed to yank down her tiny bikinis and plop herself down in the nick of time. The hiss of her urine stream momentarily drowned out the other noises, muffled through the door, and Ethel’s temples seemed to thrum with pressure. 

“I’m drunk,” she realized, leaning her elbows against her knees and propping up her head. “Wow. Wow, oh, wow…” The floor seemed to spin, and she remembered belatedly what Melody had told her once about making sure to hydrate enough throughout the night. She’d had maybe a sip or two of plain water at some point in the night, but not enough to dilute her buzz or help her equilibrium. She rose, flushed, straightened herself, and staggered to the sink.

She was still broken out in red blotches from the contact – the kiss – with Moose. “What was that all about?” she asked the mirror. “What the heck was that?” No answers were forthcoming as she washed her hands and blotted her heated face with a damp Kleenex. Her eyeliner was slightly wrecked from sweat, making her look slightly scary. “Ugh…” She eyed Stan’s large hoodie, realizing how silly she looked in its baggy folds with her dainty white dress, like she was wearing her big brother’s clothes. She took it off and decided she was reaching her limit for the night. She was thirsty, her feet ached now that she was back in her heels, and Ethel was ready to pack it in.

She wasn’t expecting Stan to greet her as she walked out, and he automatically took her hand. 

“Hey.”

“Just making sure you didn’t get lost,” he told her casually. “You better?”

“Uh-huh. Here’s your sweatshirt.” He glanced down at it and gathered it in his fist before he pulled her along with him toward the end of the corridor, away from the party. “Um… where are we headed?”

“Nowhere special. It’s loud,” he pointed out to her. She nodded in agreement.

“Hot, too,” she told him. They turned left and entered another dark, unoccupied bedroom.

“Um… okay.”

“It’s cooler in here,” he offered, and Stan closed the door behind them, releasing her for a moment to cross the room and crack open a window. Ethel sighed in relief; the rest of the house felt stifling with the crush of so many bodies taking up the space.

“It’s cool outside, too,” she mentioned helpfully. Stan smirked, then joined her on that side of the room, chucking his sweatshirt onto a nearby computer chair. 

“It’s loud, though. Nice to get away from the noise.”

“Stan… it’s getting late,” Ethel suggested.

“It’s early, for morning,” he shrugged, taking her hand, and Ethel felt a moment of panic. She wanted to kick herself for what she’d told Moose earlier. Karma was a bitch.

“I’m pretty torn up, Stan, and I’m feeling a little tired-“

He made a little pout of disappointment. “Aw. Tired already?”

“I kind of am.” She winced a little for emphasis.

“There’s a bed right there,” he told her, easily resolving her complaint.

“Well… it’s not _my bed_ ,” Ethel reminded him, just in case it needed clarifying.

“Dorm beds suck,” Stan told her, pulling her to him. He took her hands and rubbed some warmth into them, and it was a comforting gesture, even though Ethel’s stomach was full of butterflies. It was strange, being in a boy’s room, not something she was used to _at all_. “You look good in clothes, you know that?”

“Stan! That’s goofy. And, you said that already. Look, I’m not in great shape for this…”

“Well, it all depends on what you think ‘this’ is,” he told her.

“Uh. Well, it’s me… in here with _you_. In your bedroom.”

“Oh, yeah, it is. Whaddya know,” Stan joked, and he gave her fingers a little squeeze. Ethel was still nervous, feeling herself flush.

“So. Do you have party guests here a lot?” Ethel searched for something to say that wouldn’t make her sound completely deficient. It was strange, and she felt a little sick, and he was looking at her with a mixture of amusement and something she didn’t recognize, almost…

…like Archie looked at Betty. Or at Veronica. Or the way Moose used to look at Midge, that face of longing, like he wanted to eat her up, with that slow smile and that light in his eyes- 

“Party guests? Eh,” he shrugged. “You still cold?”

“I’m okay.”

“It’s funny seeing you outside of class,” he admitted again, chuckling. It brought out his dimple, but… maybe her buzz was fading a little. He was cute, but, Ethel wasn’t sure that he was getting her motor running. His touch was gentle when he reached up and smoothed back a bit of her hair from her face that trailed through the remainder of her lipstick.

Panic alarms went off in her head. NonononoNO! It felt awkward, and her skin was buzzing with awareness of him, of being really close and of his touch feeling more intimate than it had in the back yard. Because this wasn’t her. This wasn’t what Ethel usually did, it wasn’t a situation she found herself in on any given day. This was odd, to have someone who seemed like they were attracted to her, hanging on her words, looking at her like… oh. Leaning in toward her, until she felt warm breath misting over her lips.

“Is it okay if I kiss you?”

“Uh…I don’t know.”

He backed up, brows drawing together for a second, but still smiling. “No?”

“I don’t… well, maybe. Just… one?”

Stan huffed, chuckling. “Just one? For educational purposes?”

Ethel giggled, then nodded, eyes ducking away. “Well. Yeah. It would be educational.”

Because her curiosity would be satisfied, finally, to know what _this_ felt like. That hint of excitement and anticipation of letting someone who was chasing her - _her_ \- catch her. For just a second.

“C’mere,” he husked, giving her hands a little tug to bring her in, and she felt her abdomen bump against his, her dress a too-thin barrier between them. She felt the rough scratch of his denim waistband and copper button graze her, and his hands crept around her waist, warm but not overly insistent. Ethel had _no_ clue where to put her hands, and she let them hover over his chest for a moment, unsure of whether to back out and push him back, but she thought, why not? She wanted to try this. It couldn’t hurt.

 

It… was okay. It was all right, if she was being honest. Stan’s lips were a little dry, and he tasted boozier than Moose, and she wondered if she wasn’t opening her mouth enough, because Stan seemed to like a more forward approach to kissing, more openmouthed and damp, and his teeth grazed her lower lip, which was a little weird. She tried to follow along, but she kept second guessing herself, wondering if she was tilting her head the right way, if he liked this. _God, this is weird._

He pulled away, and their lips made a slight smacking sound as they disengaged. Ethel wondered if she looked dazed. Stan saw something in her face that made him shutter and make a decision.

“Well. That was interesting.”

“Um. Yeah, it was-“

“Hey, Ethel, how are you gonna get home?”

“I… my friends, I think.”

And it was like a dash of cold water, but some of the fog cleared from Ethel’s brain. Stan’s abrupt change in attitude made her self-conscious, but she also felt a wave of relief. The kiss wasn’t bad, but, it also wasn’t _Moose_.

That was when it hit her.

_Stan wasn’t Moose_.

The realization that she was attracted to Moose Mason dawned on her with such clarity that she didn’t notice when Stan began gathering up his wallet and keys. “Do you want to wear that home?”

“Huh?”

“The sweater. If you’re still cold, you can give it back to me tomorrow, Ethel, but it might be good if you keep it on while I drop you off.”

“Drop me off?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna walk you home. C’mon. Your roommate’s gonna miss you.”

Ethel wondered briefly what the heck happened, and if she should be insulted, but that was followed by the thought of “I’m going home!!!” and that steadied her feet. She walked a less crooked path down the hall, then straightened up even further when Stan looped his arm through hers. It felt companionable and silly, and she can’t imagine how they must have looked, but she laughed, accepting multiple goodbyes from Stan’s fraternity brothers as they slowly wove through the crowd in the living room toward the front door.

*

Moose stopped at the campus rec hall, open all night and relatively empty. He nodded to the RA at the front desk, who was flipping through an issue of Maxim and listening to Pharrell. He went to the shuffleboard table and lined up the discs on the table. He rubbed one in sand, lined up his shot, and sent it skimming down the deck. It clacked it too forcefully, sending it all the way off the table and into the slot. Moose put less “oomph” into his next shot, this time making the disc stop about a foot from the edge. He lined the discs back up and took a few more turns, still fuming about the night’s events.

Moose still didn’t know what came over him, what made him make that kind of move. Ethel was his classmate as long as he could remember, just another girl down the block. Gangly. Skinny. Awkward. Nerdy. Obsessed with Jughead, who couldn’t claim otherwise himself. She’d always hovered on the periphery of their circle of friends, someone he hardly noticed, for the most part, all the way up to commencement night. The most they had exchanged was a handshake, then a grudging, back-slapping hug when she suggested, “See you at the ten-year reunion!” It had become real for him, at that moment, that it was really happening, that they were all moving on.

She’d terrified him with that knowledge. Moose wanted to cling to the familiar, didn’t want to release the safe harbor of his high school memories and friends. There were too many unknowns in the real world, and it made him feel unbearably small, of questionable purpose.

But he saw a different side of Ethel. He couldn’t say it was even “new,” because even after so long, he didn’t truly know her. The surface things, certainly, those weren’t difficult to fathom. She wasn’t athletic, even though her height earned her suggestions of trying out for basketball on a daily basis. She had a thing for sunflowers. She had great school spirit. She always munched on strawberry Pop Tarts, furtively nibbling them bits at a time from where the wrapper was hidden in her backpack. She had the hots for Needle-Nose. She loved to dance and showed up at every football game. She was the best student in home ec, next to Betty Cooper.

But… just seeing her out for the night, mingling… flirting. He couldn’t explain his own reaction to it, beyond the tight gut and his mouth growing dry at the sight of her, caught up in a surge of protectiveness toward her, and the magnetic, instant attraction to her vulnerability. Ethel wasn’t like Midge, or any of the other popular girls he remembered. Her face was open, and her emotions were transparent as glass. She didn’t play games; then, Moose considered, maybe she didn’t know how.

On the other hand, considering her rapid beeline right back to Stan, maybe she _did_ know.

His musings were interrupted by the shrill, breathy voice at his elbow. “Hey!” He jumped, startled into messing up his shot. The disc thwacked off the border of the table, and then ricocheted into the slot. “Oopsie,” Melody told him apologetically. She leaned against his arm. “Whatchadoin’?”

“Chilling,” he replied. “Winding down.”

“Got an early day tomorrow?”

“Nah. Might hit the gym, though.” Provided he woke up before lunch.

“Sounds groovy!” Melody agreed happily. “I might see you there. I’m gonna do abs and butts. You ought to come to Zumba class with me one of these days.”

“Pass,” Moose told her patiently. “Thanks, though.” He lined up another disc and sent it sliding down. Without being asked, she did the next one, neatly knocking his disk off the edge and stopping just shy of the edge. He stared at her, agog.

“That wasn’t nice!”

“Your turn,” she countered sweetly. She went to retrieve the discs. “So, where’s Ethel?”

“Huh?” Moose stared at her blankly as she pressed one of the discs into his palm.

“My roomie? Tall as you, dark hair? Looked smokin’ HOT thanks to yours truly?” Melody inquired, enjoying the opportunity to brag. Moose frowned, and her features mimicked his. “Wait. She didn’t come home with you?”

“Uh-uh.” Melody paled. “I thought since you were here, Ethel was home.” Moose felt his blood run cold.

“She wasn’t anywhere in sight when I left. I heard Kumi saying she might walk her back.” The light went on in her blue eyes, and Moose felt relieved when Mel took out her smartphone in its hot pink Hello Kitty, blinged-out case and rapidly tapped the touchscreen, skimming through her contacts with one long, manicured nail. “C’mon, Kumi, pick up,” she muttered. Moose’s fist balled itself at his side and his mouth was tight. Breathless seconds went by as Melody waited for her friend to answer. “Kumi,” she said finally, impatiently, “where are you? Are you still at the party?” Moose heard the voice on the other end faintly, confirming that yes, she was still at the mixer. “What about Ethel?” Melody frowned. “I said, what about Ethel? My roomie?” Moose didn’t realize that his heartbeat had quickened until it skipped when Melody pronounced, “What do you mean she just left?” She made a gesture of _What the hell?_ at Moose, throwing up her hands and scowling. Moose felt a frisson of panic. “She left with who?”

“Who did she leave with?” Moose asked coldly.

“Stan?” Melody quoted loudly.

“I’m gone,” Moose grunted, not waiting for Melody to finish the call. He heard her rushing after him on her absurdly high heels.

“Wait up!”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m going to get her.” Melody ignored him, finally pausing to hop somewhat ridiculously, breasts jiggling, out of her heels. She then darted after him barefoot, soles slapping the pavement as she caught up to him. 

“I’m so fucking dumb,” Melody cried. “I just assumed she was going with Kumi! Don’t hate me?” she implored him. She looked upset, and Moose squeezed her shoulder briefly.

“It’s all right. I’m an ass, too.” He stalked back across campus, as quickly as he’d walked home. His temples throbbed and the cold night air burned his throat, already clogged with worry. 

Granted, maybe Stan was just walking her home, but he couldn’t shake the urge to check. She might end up telling him he was worried for nothing, or being an ass. But, what the hell.

*

Stan and Ethel stopped briefly at a nearby convenience store that had questionable looking hot dogs rotating on the metal rods of an oven that looked like it hadn’t been properly cleaned since 1985. Stan told her he was thirsty, and he automatically grabbed two water bottles and a small pack of travel-sized Tylenol.

“I get the feeling you might need these,” he told Ethel as he swiped his ATM for the bored, pimply clerk.

“Thanks,” she murmured shyly, and she made a dismayed sound as she caught her reflection in the store mirror, and the stark lights inside were cruel and too honest. She looked a complete mess, skin flushed, eyeliner smudged and her hair sticking up here and there. She was still swaddled in Stan’s too-big hoodie over her dainty dress, and her walk could only be called a stagger at this point. Ethel wanted bare feet and PJ bottoms _five minutes ago_.

Stan opened her bottle of water and handed it to her, and Ethel took several greedy gulps. Her head started to clear a little, but she still felt a bit of her buzz left. 

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Sure, Ethel. Hey, where do you live?”

“Dorms. DeCarlo Hall. Top floor in the women’s wing.”

“Didn’t want the co-ed floor?”

“Uh-uh.” She didn’t want men seeing her first thing in the morning on her way to the showers in her Hello Kitty boxers and before she put her makeup on. “I like it up in the ‘Nunnery.’”

Stan laughed. “So did my ex-girlfriend. I was glad to get out of the dorms after I was inducted.”

“Must be nice.” Sometimes it was hard to be in such close quarters with an entire flock of girls, with so much noise and chatter and drama. But at the same time, after a couple of weeks, Ethel didn’t feel as much like an outsider. She wasn’t worried about being unpopular, or wondering the way that she used to that the other girls in the locker room were staring at her, noticing that she lacked their curves, that she was tall and skinny and pale and no one’s cup of tea. But this was different. Melody helped to change her perspective a little and accepted her. 

“What made your ex an ex?” she inquired, hating the faint slur in her voice, but at least she was coherent.

“Eh. We had fun, but we wanted different things.” But his voice was wistful, and Ethel got the impression that he still wished things hadn’t ended quite yet. “She wanted to see other people. No point in trying to make someone stay with you if they wanna be somewhere else, right?”

“God, I know,” she agreed, and she thought back to Jughead. The Futile, Fruitless Struggle. It was so embarrassing in hindsight, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that… maybe there were other fish. Or at least the occasional fish who would make her feel cute and interesting. Ethel fought the urge to ask Stan if her kissing was sub-par. He’d moved her out the door pretty abruptly, and her ego was taking a hit, but at least he was a gentleman.

“Hey, Stan? Was I being a little too forward earlier?”

“No, no,” he assured her. “That… no. You weren’t. Um.” Stan threw an arm around her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You’re really nice, Ethel. You are. And, I know you had a little to drink tonight, but I also get the feeling that you were weren’t really into it?”

“Oh, God. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I had fun. It was fine, hanging out with you and everything.” His eyes were warm, and that made the knot in her chest ease a little. “I was just getting little ‘Maybe This is a Bad Idea’ vibes from you. The vibes don’t lie.”

Ethel laughed outright. “No. They don’t. God, I’m just… I’m so mad. You’re cute, and you’re nice.”

“It could have been a train wreck.”

“Ouch!”

“Hey, I’m not being mean!” he insisted, but they were both laughing, and Ethel snuggled into him, glad that he wouldn’t read anything into it.

“No, but do you have to be so damned honest? Stroke a girl’s ego a little, Stan.”

“You’re one of the cutest girls I ever decided not to have an ill-advised one-nighter with?”

“O…kay. Okay. I can accept that.” Stan grinned and gave her another little side-hug as they strolled across the campus lawn. “I think. Hm.”

 

*

Moose and Melody both trotted up the steps to the porch, and Moose shoved his way past a couple that was lingering in the front doorway, Melody hot on his heels. Ambrose looked up in confusion from a cute brunette that was hanging on his words and sipping a light beer. “Yo. What’s up, bro? Why you back?”

“Never mind,” Moose grumbled, shaking off his hand on his shoulder. Ambrose frowned, then followed them at a slow lope as they hurried through the frat house. “Where’s Ethel?” he heard him ask one of the frat brothers where he lounged on the futon.

“Who?”

“Tall girl in a white dress. Was outside earlier.”

“Where’s Stan?” Melody clarified, taking a different tack.

“Hey, where’s Stan?” he called out, but no one replied. “Maybe try the yard?” They both hurried out back, and Moose’s eyes scanned the back yard. The instruments were gone, which he expected with Melody back on campus – and now with him - but Ethel was nowhere to be found.

“Not good,” he muttered. He turned back, fuming, and stomped back into the house like a bull in a china shop. “Have you seen Ethel?” he asked a couple of other random guests.

“White dress. Skinny. Dark hair,” Melody grilled along with him.

“Bathroom, little while ago,” a petite, dirty blonde piped up, cracking her gum. “She was with some guy in a baseball cap. Brown hair. Didn’t see them come back out of the house.”

“That way,” her companion nodded, toward the back of the hall. The girls watched them with speculation as they retreated.

“Thanks.” Without permission he headed back, knocking on a closed door to his right. He tried it, then muttered “Sorry!” to a couple taking advantage of the late hour, temporarily robbing them of their privacy. He slammed it shut and kept moving.

“This is probably rude,” Melody suggested.

“Don’t care,” Moose barked.

“Okay,” she said meekly as she dogged his footsteps. He tried the next door. Empty and dark. There was one more on his left before he reached a stairway. He knocked on the door and waited for breathless seconds before knocking again. Moosehe promptly banged on the door, roughly jiggling the lock, and Melody looked uneasy.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” asked Bill, one of Stan’s other housemates. “What’s up?”

“Where’s Stan? And Ethel?” Moose demanded.

“And where’s Ethel?” Melody pressed.

“Dude, I don’t think he’s even in there.” He tried the knob, giving it a firm turn. “Shit. There. Don’t wig out, man. He’s not even here.”

The light from the corridor flooded the cluttered bedroom, illuminating the pennants and posters on the wall. Moose and Melody peered inside, and both of them sagged in frustration.

“Fuck,” Moose muttered. He’d thought the worst.

“Hey, guys,” called a familiar voice, and Melody looked up and saw Kumi waving them over. She was leaning up against the wall, nursing a water bottle and a handful of pretzels. “What’s going on? Are you looking for Ethel, still?”

“YES!” Melody cried. Kumi jerked back in surprise.

“Kiddo, chill. She’s fine. Stan was walking her home. You guys must have missed each other.”

“What?” Melody felt hollow relief.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. They were on foot.”

“Geez,” Moose muttered.

“Okay. No more banging on doors in the house, right?” Bill challenged. 

“No. We’re good,” Moose assured him. “Shit…”

“I know,” Melody agreed. “Let’s go. I want to make sure she actually makes it back.”

That set Moose back on track. 

“I’m coming, too,” Kumi decided. It couldn’t hurt to have one more set of eyes laid on Ethel to make sure she made it from Point A to Point B. All three of them felt a teeny bit guilty that none of them had walked Ethel home. It chafed.

*

“I’m never wearing these shoes again,” Ethel groaned.

“Please reconsider,” Stan suggested. “They look killer.” He was still eyeing her legs appreciatively, but that ship had already sailed.

“They’re killers, all right.” Ethel walked inside the lobby.

“Need me to see you to your door?” he inquired.

“No. I’m good.”

“Drink another one of those and take the Tylenol,” he said, nodding to her water bottle.

“I’m going to feel like crap tomorrow, aren’t I?”

“You play, you pay,” he shrugged. “Water tomorrow. Eat a big breakfast. You’ll be good as new.”

The RA at the front desk eyed them. “Hey, guys, if you’re visiting, you have to sign in.”

“I’m just leaving,” Stan insisted.

But before he could make good on that promise, Moose, Kumi and Melody burst in through the swinging glass doors. Ethel looked up in surprise. 

Moose. Wow. His face looked worried, lips tight and his posture stiff as a board. He also looked _enormous_ , chest expanding with a deep breath as his eyes fell on Stan. His fists clenched at his sides. Melody and Kumi both looked relieved, and Kumi was even slightly pissed.

“I was going to walk you home,” she scolded Ethel.

“Stan walked me?” Ethel explained, hating the uncertainty in her voice. Why did she feel like she was making excuses to her mom and dad for breaking curfew???

“Hi,” Stan said blandly, saluting the three of them. “And bye. That’s my cue. Ethel, I had fun.” Stan nodded at Moose, and his lips twisted. “She’s all yours, big fella,” he muttered as he left, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed. Moose still looked hot under the collar, and his head swiveled around to watch him leave, not content to look back at Ethel until Stan was outside and several yards away from the front door of the dorm.

_Then_ he pinned Ethel with an accusing gaze. “Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey.” Her voice was small and a little confused.

“You made it back.”

“Yeah. I’m headed upstairs.” He noticed the water bottle in her hand, and that smoothed his ruffled feathers a little.

“Sign the guest register if you’re visiting,” the RA repeated, wondering why her residents didn’t seem to be able to follow simple directions.

“I should probably go-“ Moose was flustered, but Ethel made up her mind. She stepped forward and caught his arm.

“I think we need to talk?” she pleaded, and her gray eyes searched his face. Her hand was soft. He noticed with annoyance that she was still wearing Stan’s sweater, since he’d been in too big of a hurry to leave to ask for it back.

“Sign in,” the RA urged, holding up a pen for emphasis.

 

After some deliberation, Melody signed Moose in as a guest at the front desk, where he showed the stern RA his student ID card. They hustled up the back stairs, Ethel looking the worse for wear, but she didn’t stop to spare anyone an explanation. The corridor on their wing was darkened already, and Melody keyed the lock to their room.

Ethel dug into her dresser for a large, roomy tee, her old high school gym shirt. She shrugged into it while Moose turned his head abruptly away. He heard the shifting of fabric and the plop of her dress hitting the floor, then the swish of it landing in the wastebasket beside her desk. Melody pouted but said nothing. “I’m decent,” Ethel informed him a moment later. When he looked up, she was garbed in the gym shirt and a pair of loose flannel PJ pants. Her breasts were unfettered by a bra beneath the tee, making him realize that the dress had a built-in bra. He tried to ignore them, reminding himself that he’d seen her without clothing before, anyway, but not when she was vulnerable, emotions raw, like an open sore.

“You okay?” he asked. 

“Your makeup’s on its last legs,” Melody pointed out. She began rummaging in her makeup case for wipes and cold cream. She tugged Ethel to her bed and sat beside her, legs folded, and she began the process of wiping off her roommate’s makeup. Ethel sighed beneath her roommate’s ministrations.

“Your face is all greasy and sweaty,” Melody told her.

“I know. I’m sweating vodka through my pores.”

“Ew.” Melody made a face. Moose watched the two of them uncomfortably, straddling Ethel’s desk chair and lowering himself onto it. He let his huge hands dangle in front of him, and his shoulders still felt tight and hunched from the stress of worry. Ethel was safe and sound, but spending the past hour, thinking the worst, took a lot out of him.

“So. You followed me home,” Ethel began. Melody backed away, dropping the wipes into the trash.

“Right. That’s me, getting out. You two talk.”

“Do you mind?” Ethel gave her a pleading look.

“No worries!” Melody sang, giving Ethel’s shoulder a comforting pat. “I’m gonna go meet Val! We still have that gig tomorrow.” And with that, she swept out the door, letting it slam without catching it on her way out. Ethel winced; the sound made her head throb a little. Nothing like the hangover _before_ the hangover. Ethel sighed and sagged back against the wall behind her bed, letting her legs trail off the end of it. She folded her arms beneath her chest and stared at him.

“So, what’s the deal?”

“I mighta got a little worried.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t. Or that I _shouldn’t_.” He threw up his hands. “I just wanted to look out for you, okay?”

“Okay, I guess. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Guess not. Sorry.” He felt awkward and frustrated, and she was looking at him incredulously, and he wondered how he could come out on the other end of this conversation without her thinking he was a doofus.

“It’s okay. I was just kinda surprised. I didn’t expect you to worry. I mean, it was _nice_.”

“Oh, glad you think so,” he scoffed, huffing and folding his arms over the top of the chair. His cheeks were burning, and Ethel chuckled at him. She looked wan now that her makeup was off, but she also looked more like he was used to, approachable and simple and soft. Comfortable. Her body was still having an effect on him, all long limbs wrapped up in thin flannel and cotton. Ethel pulled her hair back with a small black elastic, sharpening the bones in her face and making her eyes look large.

“So, why did you kiss me?” she asked him.

Moose sighed, then shrugged. “Because. I just… because. I-I wanted to, I guess. I know it seemed weird-“

“Not that weird,” Ethel corrected him gently. “It was just a surprise.” Again.

“Yeah. Guess it was.”

“Moose? Um, I know I’m not your usual type.”

“I don’t have a type,” Moose said, taken aback.

“Everybody has a type,” she argued. “Like Midge. All cute and hot and tiny.”

Moose laughed. “Not every girl that I date has to be just like Midge. I mean, yeah, Midge is hot, but… that wasn’t the only reason why we dated. Midge was fun.” He sighed, and Ethel could tell she struck a nerve. “She just wanted different things. It’s not like I’m trying to get her back.”

“No?”

“No. I’m not.”

And for some reason, that pleased Ethel. Just a niggling, mean little burst of excitement in her chest, because okay. Maybe thinking of Moose as cute and single and as a possibility was something she’d only just considered, but he was available. If the kiss earlier tonight was any indication, maybe he was even interested.

“Okay. She broke up with you, huh?”

“Kinda sucked.”

“Sorry.”

“Do we hafta talk about it?” he pleaded.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry.”

“Right. Okay.” Ethel made lip-zipping motions. 

“So, Stan walked you home,” Moose began.

“He was just being polite.” And he was.

“He didn’t try anything?” Because that thought made the angry voices in the back of his mind rise up out of the clamor.

“No.” Then, “Not really.”

“Not… really?” Moose cocked his head and narrowed his blue eyes. “Hey!”

“Not much, silly! Things didn’t click.” Ethel threw up her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Won’t be the first time things didn’t click for me with a guy that I thought I liked.”

“Well, they don’t have to click _every_ time,” Moose explained. “It’s not just, _you_.”

“Psssh. Sure, it isn’t.” Ethel rolled her eyes. 

“It’s not,” Moose argued. “Why? You think it’s just you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What? Ethel? It just didn’t click with Stan.”

“It just didn’t click with Juggie, either.”

“That’s because it was _Jughead_. What did you see in that guy?”

Ethel stared down at her hands in her lap. “I dunno. I just liked him.” She looked up at him challengingly. “Okay?”

“Okay. Sheesh.”

“I always liked him. Ever since kindergarten.”

Moose’s eyes bugged. “Wow. That’s either devotion, or scary. Maybe it’s stalking.”

“Shut UP.”

“I know, but _Jughead?_ ”

“He was musical. Drummers are hot.”

“If you say so. I wouldn’t know.” Then again, he reasoned to himself, Melody _was_ hot, and the same definition could be applied more judiciously.

“Melody is a drummer,” Ethel told him, reading his mind.

That made him chuckle. “Yeaaaahhh, well… she has other things going for her besides banging the skins.”

“Don’t explain what else. Please.” Because her ego didn’t need another blow.

“She’s cute. Kind of a wing nut, but cute.”

“That’s not fair.” But Ethel bit the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t inaccurate. But it also wasn’t quite _fair_. Mel was nice. A sweetie pie. And Ethel felt protective of her.

“Okay, okay. I won’t talk smack.” He remembered Melody telling him “You’re so smart,” earlier, when they were talking, and shame pricked at him for insulting Ethel’s roomie, especially when he knew how it felt for people to underestimate how much he knew.

“She’s so lucky. Melody clicks with _everybody._ ”

“Everybody?” Moose raised his brows.

“It’s just easy for her.”

“Didn’t seem all that hard for you,” Moose told her. “I mean, you and Stan seemed like you were hitting it off, in the yard.”

“That was fine. I just felt… weird, after. I didn’t know what to do? Like, at all?”

“Oh.” Moose flushed and rubbed his nape. Ethel picked at a loose thread on her bedspread and felt lame. It was getting late, and she was exhausted. Moose did his part in making sure she was safe and sound, but now, she just felt like she was keeping him up.

“You can go, if you want.”

“Can I just… can I just say something? Can I say this first?”

“Sure. What?”

“I… Ethel.” Moose sighed, feeling his throat grow sticky as his words seemed to clog themselves there. “Midge isn’t my type. Not my _only_ type. I mean, we were together for a long time, and it sucked when we split up, but… she isn’t the only kind of girl that I like.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, and, um. I might’ve, I might kinda, I maybe noticed you, before…”

“Before what?” Ethel’s stomach dropped out of her body as she processed what he was saying. Because, _whoa. Wait. Hold. Up._

“Before the party. And maybe after we started talking more. Because I _like_ it when we talk and hang out, and maybe it’s a little weird, seeing you in class… seeing _all_ of you, but you… you’re kind of hot, but I don’t want you to think that I only think that you’re hot because you-“ Moose’s words trailed off when he noticed Ethel’s lips quirking up in an uneven smile, eyes crinkling. She bit her lip.

“Moose, do you _like_ me?”

“Maybe?” he said with a wince, realizing that _had_ to sound like he was the worst, and lame, and she had to think he was an idiot… God help him. 

“So, um. Okay.” Ethel rose from the bed, and the air felt like it was clogging her lungs for a moment, and she felt unreal, heart hammering and palms sweating. “I…” She wandered closer to him, unsure of what to do or say next. Moose stood, and for one panicked second, she thought he was about to beat feet. 

But he hesitated. “Maybe, yes?” he attempted. “Would you hate it if I said yes?”

“No,” she blurted. “I wouldn’t hate that at all, Moose.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding relieved. “Good.”

“Good.” Her reach for him was hesitant, and he felt her hand wrap around his wrist, letting her thumb stroke his pulse, and her hands were cool, but his skin felt like it was on fire, with the way her gray eyes were eating him up, and her pupils dilated when they flicked down to his mouth. She licked hers as a reflex, clearing her throat. “Is this, is this okay…?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

“Okay.”

He only had to incline his face mere centimeters to kiss her. Bless Ethel for being so tall and lanky, and for the sweet little sound of welcome that she made in her throat, husky and full of want, just for _him_. This time, it felt right to Ethel, soft and sweet, sending every nerve in her body tingling and raising all of the little hairs on her arms. Moose could _kiss_ , lips brushing over hers and taking complete, shameless ownership. That was his hand caressing her cheek, cradling it as he tilted his head and deepened the kiss, and Ethel tugged the hem of his shirt, twisting it in her fist because she needed to bring him closer, needed better access to that mouth. 

She didn’t know how long they’d been at it. When they finally came up for air, she staggered back and gasped. Wow. She should probably _breathe._

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I’m your type?”

Moose nodded, and she felt a little flattered that the gesture was emphatic, that his fingers tangled further into her hair, that he was still staring down at her mouth.

“Okay.”

*

Melody crept back inside an hour later, and she bit back a laugh at the sight before her.

Moose and Ethel were _snoring_ in concert. Ethel was wrapped around him, clutching him like he was an oversized teddy bear, and even though the covers were draped over them both, she could make out the outline of Ethel’s long leg thrown over him beneath them. Moose was slack-jawed and sawing logs. Ethel was drooling a wet patch into his t-shirt, but they looked so content. His large, beefy hand dwarfed the crest of Ethel’s shoulder where it was currently resting. There was such a contrast between them, Moose’s face boyish and young in repose, with his hearty, peachy complexion and generous muscle against Ethel’s graceful, delicate limbs and dark hair and pale skin. His embrace was protective, maybe even a little possessive, but Ethel looked completely at ease, like she trusted him, trusted herself with him in the narrow bed.

Melody saw Ethel’s white dress puddled on the floor. Moose’s shoes and jacket were parked by Ethel’s desk, along with his keys and phone. Melody carefully hung up Ethel’s dress for safekeeping, and she put Ethel’s heels into the armoire, too, so she wouldn’t stumble over them in the middle of the night if she had to get up to pee.

And because Melody was a good roommate, but she wasn’t a perfect angel, she quickly snapped a photo of the two of them with her phone. This was the kind of memory that needed to be recorded for posterity, she reasoned. And blackmail.


	5. Light of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light of day. Frank talk. Reconsidered first assumptions. And Melody's still a dingbat. Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Brief spoiler. This fic chapter winks at another one that I have out here (*coughBEGGIN’cough*). Left a little Easter egg that may make you shake your heads. Thanks for reading, anyway.
> 
> To reiterate the last chapter's note: This chapter is a SUBSTANTIAL REWRITE of the original draft. Ethel wasn't attacked, and she and Moose have had the chance to talk based on the context of actually liking each other, rather than as victim and rescuer. To anyone who didn't read the original version, I'm sorry in advance for the barf toward the end of the chapter. Hangovers are HARSH.

Ethel dreamt of the time she found her Grandma Doris' full-length chinchilla coat in her attic and tried it on. The hem pooled around her feet, since she was only five, and the sleeves hung well over her hands. All she could remember was how toasty warm she felt wrapped in all that softness...

She stirred to consciousness reluctantly, hesitating to open her eyes. The last remnant of sleep was too precious, too delicious to give up yet. And she was so warm and cozy, stretched out against something firm and musc-

Her eyes snapped open immediately. Holy shit, her mind supplied, I brought someone home!!! Her cheek rested against a hard, supple pec, which unfortunately was slicked with her own drool. One long, beefy arm curved protectively around her back, and her foot was wedged between two ankles. That arm moved, briefly taking away a bit of the warmth so its owner could scratch his nose. The body shifted slightly under hers, settling her more comfortably against him, and she didn't fight it. Ethel sighed out a long groan of contentment. Her eyes flickered to the other side of her dorm.

She mentally slapped herself. Melody lay across the way, curled up in bed and snoring like a buzz saw. Ethel felt immediately guilty about having an overnight guest and invading her roommate's space. She briefly inspected Moose's body, not as imposing as he slept, and she noticed he'd removed his t-shirt at some point in the night. Ethel felt herself flush at the sight of his bare skin, he had a ghosting of dark blond hair on his chest that tapered into a sparse happy trail... A brief stroke of her palm over his waist found the elastic of his boxer shorts, and she sent up a thankful prayer that neither of them was naked.

Well... Somewhat thankful. Moose's abdomen jumped slightly at her furtive caress, and she felt even guiltier for disturbing him.

She replayed the night's events in her head, vaguely remembering Jell-O shots and blaring music. Her feet still throbbed from walking around in the snug, uncomfortable little heels that Mel talked her into, and her eyes spied the evil knit dress hanging in the corner of the room, mocking her again.

She cringed. Stan... Geez. What a mess, she mused. He was always easygoing in class when she posed for it, but now she had _kissed_ him. How the heck was she going to look him in the eye again after the party? She’d been so drunk. And he walked her _home_.

Then there was still the issue of Moose. Ethel realized she hadn't treated Moose very well last night, earlier. She remembered the turn of events, one frame at a time, smothering a sigh at each one.

She’d danced with Stan. No big deal, at first. That inescapable, warm and blurry haze of alcohol lowered her inhibitions… it was strange to realize that she had them to begin with. Ethel had never, ever been that bold with a guy, even when she was still chasing Jughead. Ethel didn’t consider herself a flirt, certainly. Up until last night, no one had ever paid her that much blatant attention. It was a heady rush… but it just didn’t work. Things weren’t meant to be. 

Stan was right. It was better that they had let things lie after one kiss. It was “educational.” Not that she hadn’t had fun with him, but… yeah. No. Just, no. Moose, on the other hand. Wow. He was so solid and cozy beneath her. They fit together easily, and her bed was crowded, but she felt like he belonged there.

She’d gone to Stan’s room… Ethel groaned aloud, and the sound hurt her own ears. The room spun a little, and she closed her eyes miserably. Was this what a hangover felt like? She smacked dry lips and wondered when someone replaced her tongue with a dirty lint roller. Moose jerked slightly, and his arm tightened around her. Ethel sighed and stretched against him, yawning, then lowered the hem of the covers a little to give her overheated skin some air.

“Ugh,” he muttered. “No mixing.” Ethel giggled, then winced.

“No kidding.”

“You were in rare form. I had to pry you off of the chandelier.”

“Ha, ha.” Ethel raised her head from his chest and looked him over. He had bags under his eyes and his blond hair was a tousled mess. He also had a slight pillow crease in his cheek that made her smile. “Good morning, Handsome.” Moose snorted and gently nudged her head back down against his chest in an attempt to silence her. She tickled his armpit, making him squirm.

“Quit it…”

“I wasn’t swinging from the chandelier.”

“You were about one Jello shot shy.”

“I wasn’t any kind of shy,” she grumbled. “Geez… how did I end up there?”

“You went with Melody.”

“I know, but I’m talking about everything else. That wasn’t me.”

“I dunno, Ethel. You might have had us all fooled up until now. Taylor Swift on the outside, and Lady Gaga on the inside.” She felt him shrug beneath her, and she glared up at him.

“You’re the worst. Seriously.”

“You had a little alcohol. It’s no big deal. You were having fun.”

“Did I sound really bad?”

“No. You had your moments.” She groaned into his chest. Moose chuckled and stroked her hair.

“That’s what it sounded like,” she argued back. “I don’t act all… crazy.” She made a finger spinning gesture. “Not usually.”

“No.” He continued to stroke her hair and stared up at the ceiling. It felt soft sliding through his thick fingers. “Not that crazy.”

“Hmmph…” This time she shifted her face up to squint at him, trying to raise herself up from his tempting bulk, but he grasped her shoulders and didn’t let her get far.

“Calm down,” he muttered, blue eyes boring into hers. “That’s not what I’m even trying to say. Ethel… you’re different. You’re not the same person I remember from high school. You’re a little… wilder.” She opened her mouth to give him what-for, but he shushed her. “Not in a bad way. But I remember you being a little more buttoned up.” He paused for a moment, and she could hear the wheels turning. “You were you, but not you. Do you get me?”

“Nooooo…?” He sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Never mind, then…”

“Do you think I’m a tramp?” she asked suddenly. He stiffened, and his eyes cut down at her in annoyance.

“Heck, no. Why? Who said anything? Why would you think that?”

“It’s just-“

“No, it’s just not,” he interrupted. “It’s not, Ethel.” She averted her eyes from his, but he tugged a lock of her hair. “It was a party. Everybody cuts loose once in a while. You were having fun, and no one was judging you. They were too busy staring at the hot, half-naked girl dipping into the Jello shots. They weren’t judging you for that, trust me.”

“God.” Ethel sighed, and Moose shivered at the soft puff of her warm breath misting over his flesh. “I’m so stupid…”

“No, you’re not. I hate that word,” he grumbled. “You’re not stupid at all.”

“I made you and Mel worry. Sorry.”’

“It’s okay.” Moose’s arm tightened around her, and she huddled against him, enjoying his warmth.

“I’m not stupid, either,” Melody murmured blearily, smacking her lips before she flipped over and resumed her low snores moments later. “S’okay… Ethel.” Ethel smothered a snicker.

“See. There you go,” Moose said simply. “Listen to your roommate.”

“You realize what you’re telling me to do, right?” she reminded him. Melody looked almost vulnerable snuggled under the covers, one arm flung over her head. Her hair was knotted into a scrunchie bun on top of her head, her face was stripped of makeup, and she wore a pink satin Hello Kitty sleeping mask trimmed in ruffles and rhinestones. Moose smirked.

Ethel contemplated the events of the night before some more, just soaking up Moose’s warmth and enjoying his gentle caresses. He just felt so good.

“I wasn’t very nice to you last night.”

“Oh.” That confused him. “When?”

“You know… when I kissed you. And I got my nose all bent out of joint when you stopped.” She felt so awkward, but so relieved to admit what had been nagging her since they arrived back at her room last night. Moose was quiet, and his chest heaved beneath her cheek in a heavy sigh. He made a thoughtful sound, and his hand rubbed circles over her back.

“Yeah. About that.” He peered down at her. “I’m sorry. That was a jerk move. I didn’t have any business kissing you like that, Ethel. It’s just… I don’t know.” He removed his hand for a moment, then let it rest against her skin again. “I just had this urge. I had a little to drink, too.”

“You didn’t have the Jello shots,” she reasoned. “You weren’t as torn up as me.”

“But I knew better. It wasn’t the time or the place, and, y’know…” He was frustrated.

“Now that you’ve had the chance to sleep on it, do you still think it was a good idea?”

Because that thought was nagging her the longer she gave herself to think about it. Because she felt uncertain, in the light of day, that he could like her. Really like her, and want to keep spending time with her. This could still be a fluke, couldn’t it. 

“I was afraid to mention it,” Moose admitted. “I’m kinda glad you did first.”

“Mentioned what?” 

He swallowed around a lump of worry. “That last night happened.”

“Now that we’ve kinda mentioned it, is this still okay?” She steeled herself for a possible rejection, because he could still decide it was a bad move. She slowly withdrew her hand, prepared to get out of bed and give him the chance to get decent. His bare chest was making it difficult to think clearly and maintain polite boundaries – or think straight, she admitted to herself – and in the light of day, they needed to-

His lips.

They were soft and warm when he tilted her face up to meet his, shifting her more comfortably against him, and he captured her hand, holding it against his chest. She felt his heartbeat, noticing that it picked up in speed, matching her own rapid pulse. He captured her brief, low sound of wonder that turned into a moan of need. Each kiss was a slow, thoughtful caress of his mouth, a getting-to-know-you, a good-morning-how-did-you-sleep greeting that made her body hum to life. Pleasure fluttered in her stomach at the feel of him against her, and she combed her fingers through his short blond hair, exploring its coarse texture.

This.

This was what had been missing last night, she realized. This quiet, casual perusal and intimacy. It wasn’t there with Stan, the connection just wasn’t there; with Moose, it came naturally. There was chemistry. Moose liked taking his sweet time and enjoying the moment. He eased her up, rearranging her until the length of her body was flush against his. His large hands framed her face and guided it into his kiss, one after another. Her hands stroked his arms, his shoulders, the lovely recess of his collarbone and the cords of muscle in his throat.

She’d worried about dragon breath. She knew hers had to smell absolutely hellacious, between her bender and just waking up in the morning, but that worry was banished when he came up for air, holding her back from him for a moment. “I need to brush my teeth,” he confessed. She nodded.

They broke into snickers. She kissed his cheek and caressed the hint of stubble emerging there. “You need a shave, too.”

“What? Don’t like beards?”

“I don’t know,” she told him. “Never kissed anyone with one.” His brows rose at that.

“Ever wanted to?” She shrugged.

“It’s not a dealbreaker. Not really a preference, either.”

“It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if you grew a beard, either,” Moose told her soberly.

“Yes, it would.”

“Okay. It would. But, seriously. You want me to shave?”

“Not right now,” she allowed. “Deal?” He nodded and pulled her down for another mind-tangling kiss, and she didn’t make any further effort to get out of bed. Her t-shirt hem rode up and her bare belly slid against his, impossible to avoid with so much of him exposed. His fingers feathered over her narrow waist and traced her lower spine. Her body felt different from Midge’s, her curves less generous but still soft and inviting. He could feel her narrow hipbones and the faint impression of a delicate rib. Ethel had no basis for comparison, and she didn’t need one. He felt solid, hot and delicious, his mounds of muscle wrapped in taut, smooth skin. Moose… he was always cute. His looks were boyish, if you could get past how big and burly he was, being the oldest kid in their class growing up. She’d never held anyone before, or been kissed the way her friends always described, and her long-held dream came true, with some changes.

It wasn’t with Jughead. It didn’t have to be. It never would have felt like this.

He’d been one half of “Moose and Midge” since junior high. In the back of her mind, she felt odd, kissing the one person she always thought of as “taken.” Midge was curvaceous, athletic and beautiful, so why wouldn’t he be obsessed with her? That thought gave her pause. She broke their kiss, reluctantly, and rested her forehead against his cheek. 

“What? What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“You look like something’s wrong.” He was scowling slightly, but he nuzzled her. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s… nothing.” Before he could press any further, they heard a loud, girlish yawn from across the way, and Melody rolled herself upright and stretched, mask still in place. Ethel felt a hint of panic, realizing that Moose wasn’t really decent. She fumbled around and found his discarded shirt and shoved it into his hand, taking advantage of her roommate’s temporary blindness. Melody stretched out a kink in her shoulder, rotating it, and she scratched her boob, not realizing that she had an audience. Moose watched her, fascinated, until Ethel poked him in irritation. He went back to the task at hand of getting dressed, and he shuffled out of bed, treating Ethel to an inadvertent view of the open flap of his boxers.

Whoa.

Her cheeks flushed deep scarlet at the sight of his man-bits dangling out and clearly half-awake, the flesh a rosy pink. She averted her eyes sheepishly, but she felt a tightness between her legs, an awareness that she’d been keeping that warm all night. Moose hopped into his jeans with slight difficulty, not something he enjoyed doing in a hurry. His shirt was thoroughly rumpled, and a brief glance in the full-length mirror on her closet door told Ethel that she looked a fright, too, and that her breasts weren’t cooperating. Her nipples were standing at attention through the thin material of her tee. She folded her arms across her chest and hunched over a little, despite that, when she thought about it, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. Moose checked his pockets for his keys and wallet just as Melody lifted her sleeping mask and slid it above her forehead.

“Hellooooo, dry mouth,” the blonde drummer muttered. “Hey, Moosie. Wanna get breakfast?” She was nonplussed, not caring that Ethel had a male overnight guest. She scratched her belly absently before getting up to retrieve her smartphone.

“Um… I gotta go. I’ll let you two do your thing.” Ethel was still blushing furiously, but she got out of bed and politely walked him to the door.

“Thanks again,” she murmured. “Maybe we’ll… talk later.”

“I’m headed to the gym, and I’ve gotta study for an Econ test with Ambrose.”

“Oh. Ambrose. Tell him hi.”

“Okay.” He was anxious to go, more so when Melody gave him a goofy little grin and waved at him. He needed space to think, and his body still bore the imprint of Ethel’s softness, and a willingness that he found too tempting. There were too many things to sort out. But as she left him out, he turned back and gave her a plaintive look. Despite her disheveled state, he pulled her into the hall with him for a moment and pulled the door mostly shut, away from Mel’s prying eyes. “I’ll see you,” he told her before stealing a kiss that made her sigh. Her fingers tangled in the collar of his shirt, and she wanted so badly to bring him back inside. When he pulled away, he nodded a goodbye, but the warmth of his lips lingered.

“Come back in here,” Melody sang, “and dish.” Ethel sighed and shook her head, then closed out the rest of the world for the next hour, spilling everything to her roommate and filling in the gaps from when they’d separated at the party. Melody was an awesome audience, hugging her pink, polka-dotted throw pillow against her chest and sitting Indian-style on her bed, hanging on her every word. They agreed that the jello shots had been fantastic, but Melody sobered a little when Ethel told her about how she’d felt after Stan invited her into his room.

“E, I’m still sorry we lost track of each other. I’m glad he walked you home, but that could have gone south. I feel like crap for leaving you behind like that.”

“You didn’t know. Stan’s a little goofy, but he’s decent.”

“Buddy system from now on,” Melody promised, extending her pinkie. Ethel locked hers around it and they shook on it. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I know,” Ethel said humbly. “ It’s not like I ‘know’ Stan, but I see him every day, and I’ve never had so much of an inkling that he thought of me in any other way than some girl who sits naked in his art class.”

“Y’know, it’s funny. I don’t how guys think about me, either.” Melody mulled it over. “It’s like, I talk to them, but they don’t seem like they’re paying much attention to what I’m saying. Like, we’ll be talking, and I’ll ask them a question, and they’re like, ‘Huh? What?’ and it’s like I’ve been talking to a wall. And they’re never looking at my face.” Ethel’s lips twitched, but she nodded agreement.

“Who can figure ‘em out?”

“I know, right???”

They took their conversation to the showers, chatting over the noise of the spray, the white curtain separating them. Ethel vigorously shampooed her hair, washing off Moose’s essence while reliving his touch. And Stan’s kiss… she shuddered. The night was a blur. She still heard the live music blasting from the backyard and smelled the masculine funk of dirty laundry and sneakers, of his room and his acrid cologne… in hindsight, it was unappealing. It never would have worked.

“Wanna go to Starbucks, or just to the hall?” Melody inquired cheerfully. “I’m in the mood for a bagel.”

”Anything that won’t come back up.” Ethel was slowly beginning to feel like ten pounds of crap stuffed into a five-pound sack. “Ooh. You starting to feel bad?” “Bad might be an understatement…” “Uh-oh…” Ethel heard Mel shut off her shower abruptly, and she peered inside Ethel’s stall, noticing that she looked pale and sick. 

“ Right. Let me help you.” She reached in and helped Ethel rinse her hair, turning off the dial and wrapping her in her large bath sheet. Melody reached for Ethel’s shower caddy and helped her toward the door, but Ethel made her wait. “Oh, God,” Ethel blurted before stumbling toward the bathroom stall. She just made it before she chucked up the sour contents of her stomach. Melody set down the caddy on the sink and held back her hair, patting her back. “Starbucks,” Melody decided for her. “Time for coffee.” Ethel’s reply lived halfway between “Sure,” and “bleeearrrggghhh…”

*

Ethel spent the remainder of the day heavily dosed with Motrin and guzzling water to combat cotton mouth. Melody, well accustomed to recovering from an all-night bender, cheerfully informed her that she was on her way to a yoga class. She looked fresh as a daisy, hair held back from her face by her big sunglasses, her long, rolled-up pink mat tucked under her arm.

“Sure you don’t wanna go.”

“Unngh.”

“That a no?”

“Uunnggh.” Ethel nodded, even though it hurt. She gave Mel a thumbs-up, eyes still closed and half-shielded by her pillow. 

“Byyeeeeeeee!” Melody let the door swing shut, and Ethel cringed at the slam. That left her alone with her thoughts, which were a hopeless jumble.

She’d spent the night with Moose. It boggled her mind. It still felt surreal, and her body still felt marked, somehow. She felt as though anyone looking at her could tell that she’d made out with a boy. That he spent the night tucked into her bed. She’d always heard her friends joking about the “Walk of Shame,” but this wasn’t the same. She became keenly aware that Moose’s name was on the guest register as visiting _her_ in the wee hours of the night. Their encounter was _documented_ in the books. She had the childish urge to run to the RA and tell her, “Please, please, pretty please, don’t tell my parents.” 

She replayed those events in her mind and kept coming full circle back to the question: What did Moose think of her? If Melody hadn’t woke up when she did, how far would they have gone? 

She turned to a source of reason and insight that she trusted more than anyone else, reaching over to get her smartphone from her purse. She thumbed through her screen of contacts, heading to the C’s. She tapped Betty Cooper’s photo icon and waited impatiently through her ringback tone of “Redneck Woman.” Ethel toyed with the edge of the comforter and stared up at the ceiling, glad it wasn’t spinning anymore. Her stomach decided to mend fences with her, starting to growl.

“Hey!” Betty chirped at her. “Long time, no hear!”

“I know. I miss you.”

“How’s school?”

“Eh. It’s… school. It’s okay.”

“Just okay?” She could hear Betty’s smile faltering over the phone, and Ethel sighed.

“Things are kind of a mess. I just need an ear.”

“I’ve got two.”

“I went to a party last night. Some things got out of hand.”

“How out of hand are we talking, Ethel? Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I am. I’m nursing a hangover from hell.” Betty giggled.

“Aw. Yeah. Not crazy about those. If I’ve learned anything since I’ve been away from home, it’s never jump in on a drinking game when someone turns on an episode of SNL. And wine coolers are dangerous. Stay away from those.”

“And Jello shots,” Ethel chimed in. “Evil. EEEEVILLLLL.”

“So you went out, huh?”

“I might have made a few bad judgment calls, but things worked out in the end.”

“What happened, sweetie?”

“I spent a lot of the night hanging all over this guy in the life art class that I model for. I think I kind of made a fool out of myself. And I kissed him.” There was a brief silence on the other end of the call. Ethel bit her lip, wondering what Betty thought of her, now.

“Wow, Ethel! Whoo! Someone’s coming out of their shell while they’re away from home.“

“Ohhh, just a little bit.”

“Was he cute?” 

“Yeah. He’s decent looking, but there just wasn’t that special something, y’know? No spark.” 

“Was he all right with that?” 

“Yeah. It didn’t really go anywhere, but Betty, let me tell you: I was FREAKING OUT the whole time.” 

“I bet! Wow,” she laughed. “Look at you. What did you end up wearing to the party?” Because Betty asked the important questions. 

“Oh, God.” That freshened Ethel’s embarrassment. “You don’t wanna know.” 

“Oh, I do! I do now that you tell me I don’t!” 

“This little, white nothing dress! It was all hoochie-mama-ish and tight and SHORT.” 

Betty cackled on the other end of the line. “You’re kidding! Wow, that doesn’t sound like you at all, Ethel.” 

“Blame my roommate, Melody.” 

“Okay. Where’s Melody from, again?”

“Midvale.”

“That’s right.”

“I sent you that picture of her.”

“I know. I remember. I liked the kitty ears. She looks fun.” Betty got back on topic. “So what happened?”

“Stan kissed me. I wanted to see what it was like.” 

“Verdict?” 

“Eh. It was just, ‘Eh.’” 

“Ah.” 

“It wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t exactly screaming for more, either. So, he walked me home.” 

“Oh. Melody knew where you were?” 

“Not until I scared the crap out of her. And out of Moose.” 

“Moose?” That caught Betty’s interest. “That’s RIGHT. You two go to the same campus.” 

“Hoo, yeah.” 

“Hey. What’s up? What’s up with that tone?” Betty’s voice went all furtive. “Did something happen with you and Moose?” 

Ethel took a deep breath. “He might have stopped by to check on me to see if I was okay after I came home from the party. And we might have talked about somethings, because maybe Stan wasn’t the only guy who kissed me at the party.” 

“Holy. Cow. Are you kidding me. Ethel, are you _kidding_ me?” 

“No.” 

“ETHEL LORRAINE MUGGS.” 

“And he might have come up and stayed with me because it was late when we were done talking.” 

Ethel held the phone away from her ear when Betty shrieked. Her voice sounded all excited when she came back. 

“So, by ‘stayed with you,’ did anything… happen?”

“No. Not like that. He just looked after me. He just made sure I was all right.”

“What was that like? I mean, this is Moose Mason! Wow! You like him? Was it nice?”

“Oh, it was nice.” With Moose’s heartbeat beneath her cheek and the faint remainder of his cologne tickling her nose. So nice. 

“Moose can be pretty sweet,” Betty mused. “He’s single again, isn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“Midge. She’s going to community college and working at the Choklit Shoppe until she can earn enough money and credits to transfer. I ran into her two weeks ago. She said the whole long distance thing wasn’t working. She’s been hanging out with Adam.”

“Adam? Like, your Adam?”

“He’s not my Adam anymore,” Betty chuckled. “He was always nice, though. The chemistry just wasn’t there.”

“Chemistry, huh?” Ethel’s lips quirked. “Who do you have chemistry with these days, Cooper?”

“Oh… no one you’d know,” she teased smugly.

“Betty. SPILL.”

“Okay. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Tallish, nice dimples, lettered in every sport and plays bass guitar?” Ethel’s eyes widened.

“Wait… REGGIE?”

“The one and only Mantle the Great,” Betty confirmed.

“Geez. We need to get caught up. Soon.”

“He walked me home from a party, too.”

“Hope he didn’t have to rescue you from anybody.”

“Nope, unless you count wine coolers and a living room full of frat boys and jocks I hardly knew.”

“How is he?”

“Great.” She heard a genuine smile in her voice, and Ethel grinned.

“I’m glad.” Ethel sighed. “I don’t know what to do about Moose.”

“See where things go. What is he doing today?”

“He escaped after Melody invited him to eat with us. Haven’t heard from him yet. I have art class with him tomorrow.” Her stomach sank once she said it aloud. 

“Maybe you can talk to him somewhere else,” Betty suggested. 

“I don’t have his number.”

“Facebook him,” Betty suggested. “He’s on my list. Add him from there.” Ethel mulled this.

“He’ll think I’m stalking him.”

“Um, no. Go ahead and add him, woman. Talk to him.”

“Maybe I’ll just message him.”

“Whatever works. Wimp.”

Ethel made a sound of disgust. “I’m feel like an idiot. This shouldn’t be difficult.”

“It shouldn’t be. Not really. Does it seem like he likes you?”

“Well, we talked about it a little. Kind of.” Ethel wouldn’t assume that kisses didn’t lie, but he made himself pretty comfy in her narrow little dorm bed.

“What was he like?” Betty asked.

“How do you mean?”

“When he’s just… I dunno, when he’s not around his friends, or around Midge like he was back in the day, what’s Moose like?”

“Mellow. Funny. Easy to talk to, I guess.” And cute. Cuddly. Warm. Oh, so warm. Gentle.

“Yet, you’re wondering what to say to him now?”

“I woke up drooling all over him this morning, after I spent all night hanging on a guy in my class. We both had a lot to drink. Kinda hard to find the right words, Bets.”

“Well, try.”

They chitchatted another few minutes and rang off. Ethel shoved her feet into her tennies, shrugged into a hoodie, and made her hair somewhat presentable before heading for the dining hall. Her mind whirled with questions that seemed like they were supposed to have easy answers. 

It never worked out that way…


	6. Late Drop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Ethel’s job isn’t as uncomplicated as it was before. Neither is the situation with Moose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say thank you for a minute to cloudwalker425, who renewed my interest in this story? And to disarmlow, who pointed to this pairing in “This is Not a Love Story” and who gave me a shout-out. Thank you for giving my stories some support. That was nice.

Ethel’s stomach was a twisted up mess of knots as she waited on the uncomfortable chair outside of Professor Grundy’s office. Her cup of dorm cafeteria coffee was now lukewarm from the walk across campus in the chilly air. She took a sip of it anyway to distract herself. She heard her professor’s voice through the door, seeing the silhouette of her dark head through the fogged glass pane, and it was reassuring, almost comforting, hearing her voice that was so much like her high school teacher’s. 

Ethel planned out her speech – her list of excuses – to Professor Grundy, trying to figure out how best to tell her she wanted to quit her job. She wondered if she had other models on stand-by for the life drawing class, if that was the kind of thing that required a “hiring pool,” like with secretaries or typists. Ethel snorted to herself at the thought. Nervousness made all kinds of crazy thoughts run through her head.

But it was so hard. Everything was so hard, ever since the night of the party.

She hadn’t run into Stan since then, which was a relief. She still saw his fraternity brothers walking around in their colors and letters, and it made her clench up and duck out of their sight, not wanting them to remember her face, or her dress, or the way she had hung all over their brother. Ethel kept mentally facepalming, kicking herself.

Ethel thought of Moose, how it felt to wake up to him that morning. It would be nice to have things on a “normal” footing between them, which might be helped by quitting the class. Stan had kissed her, and he had seen her naked. And she liked Moose best. That realization and change in their status strengthened her resolve.

“She might understand,” Ethel murmured under her breath. “This might not be a good fit. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that I need more time to study-“ She clapped her mouth shut as she watched the people inside moving and rising from their chairs, and the student inside jerked open the door.

“We’ll see what we can do. I hope the change works out,” Professor Grundy called out, and then she smiled as she saw Ethel in the corridor. “Well, hello! There’s one of my favorite models! I’ve heard so many good things about you, dear.”

“Oh. Wow. Thanks.” Ethel felt herself flushing, hot prickles bursting over her flesh. “Um. I just wanted to stop by to ask you… something.”

“Oh. Sure! Come inside. Make yourself at home, Ethel. What’s on your mind?”

“Um…well. It’s. It’s about life drawing class.”

“They enjoy drawing you. You’re an excellent subject.”

“Well… anyway. I was wondering if it would be okay if I stopped.”

Professor Grundy’s smile faltered a little. “Oh. What’s wrong? Has someone been inappropriate?”

Ethel exhaled sharply, and it felt like the pent-up ball of nervousness lodged in her chest dissipated. “Not really. Not like that, but things got a little awkward outside of class with one of the guys that’s in it.”

“Would you mind switching sections, then? I could see if we could arrange a trade with the male model I have in the other drawing period?”

Hope flared in Ethel's chest. “Oh, wow. That wouldn’t be bad at all. You think he’d be willing to switch classes?”

“It happens,” the professor told her, shrugging. “I try to accommodate students’ schedules if they really want to stay enrolled in my art classes but something comes up. Things happen.” 

“Okay. I’d be willing to work with that, if you get an answer from him about it.”

“Good.” Ethel was about to rise from her seat, but Professor Grundy’s next question stopped her. “So. If you don’t mind my asking, what happened?”

Heat rose up into Ethel’s cheeks, and she settled reluctantly back into her chair. “It wasn’t a big deal. He’s a nice enough guy, but I just… it’s hard to explain. I kinda made a fool out of myself at a party.”

Professor Grundy bit her lip. “Alcohol?”

“A little.”

“Ah.”

“Switching classes might work out for the best.”

“The campus has a zero tolerance policy for harassment. Just keep that in mind, dear. I don’t want you to feel threatened or disrespected.”

“There wasn’t any harassment. Just a bad case of beer goggles.” Ethel argued.

“Fraternities and sororities are campus organizations. Our staff can’t ignore incidents that happen in their houses when our students are involved. We want every member of our student body to feel safe, no matter what time of day. Okay? Don’t explain something away as ‘beer goggles’ if something untoward happens to you, or if someone was inappropriate with you, okay, sweetheart?”

“Okay. I understand, Professor.”

“Good. You made it home all right?”

“Yup. I had an escort home.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Stay safe.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Is everyone else in the class decent toward you?”

“Yes. Really, they’re all pretty great.” Ethel thought of Moose, how he would furtively watch her from behind his easel. She never wanted to read too much into the way he looked as he drew her, before. But now… well. This was an entirely different ball of wax.

Ethel and Professor Grundy reviewed the schedule and saw a couple of classes she could model for instead, Beginning Portraiture and Watercolor Basics. “The painting class needs models desperately, particularly if you can hold a pose for at least an hour and a half. They don’t just need to have the pose, they need enough time to really mix washes of color and shadows. So, that would be a few more hours to pad your paycheck.”

“I’ll think about it. Actually, it sounds pretty neat.”

“I’ll tell Verne, the instructor. That’ll make his day. You can stop by his classroom if you want, he’s in Studio 2B after four o’clock.”

“Sweet!”

Professor Grundy rose and showed her to the door, laying her hand gently on Ethel’s back. “Thanks for coming to me. I wouldn’t want you to be unhappy working for my classes, Ethel.” 

“No. No, no. This helps. Believe me.”

“Have a good day.”

“You, too, ma’am.” Ethel waved and booked it out of the arts building, feeling her whole body unknot itself as the fresh air hit her in the face, filling her lungs.

“Whew.”

*

It turned out she needn’t have worried.

She went to her next scheduled class period to work, robe packed in her backpack, and the professor nodded to her.

“Professor Grundy told me that you might be switching periods?”

“I’m thinking it might work better with my schedule,” Ethel hedged.

“That’s fine.”

Ethel noticed the empty desk where Stan usually sat. That was odd. Moose looked up from setting up his easel with his drawing pad and charcoal vines. He gave her a brief little wave, then gestured for her to come over.

“Hey.”

“Where’s Stan?” she whispered.

“He dropped the class.”

“Oh, wow… crap. I hope it wasn’t because of me?” She felt an ugly, apprehensive tingle run through her stomach.

“Nah. Don’t worry about it. I ran into him at the library. He mentioned that he swapped this out for American Folklore. Says it was a great choice.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“So, uh… you’re still working… doing this, huh?”

“Yeah. Kind of. For now,” she allowed. “I’d, uh, better go… change.”

Undress.

Because, yeah. She still had to go get naked in front of the guy that she now realized that she _liked_. That wouldn’t be awkward at _all_. Ethel went into the back room to stow her backpack, disrobe, then shrug into her wrap. She gave her hair a brief glance, smoothing a few locks, then decided to pin it up to show the line of her neck.

Moose’s mouth went dry when she came out. There were those invitingly long legs of hers again, and he saw the buds of her nipples pressing through the thin, slick fabric of her robe. That was no different than before, except that _now_ , his brain supplemented the sight of her with the memory of how it felt to hold her, to have that lithe, soft body pressed against him from head to toe. To kiss that sleepy mouth and feel her arms twine around him, the scant weight of her thigh pinning him to the mattress.

And there it was, an inconvenient, totally unwelcome boner.

“Great,” he huffed under his breath. 

As if on cue, Ethel dropped her robe beside the low dais. She took up her first pose, and Moose cursed himself for not planning how to deal with this… problem.

Draw. He had to _draw_. He had to be a functioning adult with more brain cells than hormones and create a reasonable image of the creature before him, all long limbs and high cheekbones, with those small breasts pouting at him, and yeah… his dick wasn’t listening to his demands that it just calm down, already.

His hand shook when he picked up the charcoal, making those first few rough, faltering lines. Ethel spared him, looking toward a different corner of the room, and that allowed Moose to look his fill of her. It helped that Stan wasn’t there, at least. It would have been weird. Beyond weird. And he remembered back to Stan’s remarks about Ethel’s body that first week of class, and in hindsight, Moose wished he could have kicked his ass. It seemed like a sacrilege for him to talk about her like that, especially now that Moose saw her in a different light. Now that he’d really talked to her. Listened to her. Gotten to know her quirks and her self-deprecating, sharp humor. 

It was a long, torturous hour. The more he worked on the drawing, the better acquainted his hands grew with all of Ethel’s scant curves, angles, and flat planes, the hollows of her cheeks and gauntness of her collarbones and ribcage. Her stomach was so flat, just short of being concave, and those breasts were distracting him. The soft light from the head lamp shone down on her glossy black hair, turning it reflective and bright. Moose remembered kissing her smile, how petal-soft those lips felt, sharing his breath. Her touch had been so hesitant at first, then greedy. Those long, slender hands ran through his hair, mapping out the span of his back-

Moose had to snap himself out of the fantasy before he drifted completely off. He rubbed his nape and scolded himself.

“Everything okay, Marmaduke?”

“Yeah. Yup. It’s all good.”

“You’re enjoying today’s assignment,” he remarked. “Nice work so far. Great attention to the proportions and contours today. A little more foreshortening on that leg would be nice, but this is one of your better sketches.”

“Oh. Uh, wow. Thanks.”

“Of course.” The professor roamed the studio, observing and lending feedback on angles and perspectives as he glanced at each easel. Moose focused on Ethel’s profile, almost wishing down that she would face him. The irregularity of her nose, the long, narrow jawline, those strong, arched brows, were all compelling, making her memorable instead of just pretty. She wasn’t wearing makeup. 

He remembered back to their conversation in her dorm. Was she jealous of Midge? He hoped not. Midge Klump was a beautiful, sexy girl. Yes, she was. She’d definitely caught his eye as a freshman, and she only got prettier every year, but…

 _Everyone_ wanted Midge. It was intimidating, and it knocked him off-balance, and every time he saw someone flirting with Midge, or when she _flirted back,_ it just brought back all of the old insecurities. Wondering if he was good enough. Smart enough. Funny enough. Talented enough. Interesting enough. Cute enough (her word, not his). Did she consider someone like Reggie Mantle or Archie Andrews to be more in her league? Everybody wanted her. Not just anyone wanted him.

So. It felt good to be kissed by someone who did. It satisfied all of his senses and quieted down all of the mean voices in his head when Ethel moaned his name in that breathy voice, when she clung to him. Ambrose was right. There was nothing wrong with admitting that he liked Ethel Muggs. A lot. 

His feelings were plain on his face.

Ethel noticed that when the professor called time for a break. She got up and retrieved her robe, and she saw Moose’s eyes. _Wow_.

Okay. _Okay_. 

He was rapt, and that look…oh, good grief. That look, so hungry and full of longing. Her hands fumbled with the tie of her robe, suddenly not wanting to work. She hesitated for a moment, then realized that there were other people in the room. She hurried, then, to cover herself before people started to stare… well, stare beyond the usual stares.

It was all just so weird.

“Gads, I just _can’t,_ ” she murmured to herself.

“Do you get stiff up there?” one of the older re-entry students asked her.

“Yeah. Feels good to stretch when I’m done.”

“We’re so happy to have you here. You’re so much fun to draw.” Ethel beamed under the praise.

“Thanks.”

“You’re just so interesting to look at!”

Ethel tried not to be hurt that this was the case; she didn’t have any illusions that people thought she was pretty.

But Moose’s eyes told her a different story entirely. She felt them following her around the room as she visited the artists and enjoyed their sketches, each one an homage to her uniqueness.

*

Ambrose keyed his way into their dorm room and found his roommate flat on his back, tossing a baseball up into the air and catching it. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’s up? You’re in a mood. This is you in a mood.”

“This is me, not having a clue. No clue.”

“About…?”

“Ethel.”

“Really?” Ambrose perked up. He shucked his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. “Something new developed between you two?”

“You could say that.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with you not coming back home the other night?” Ambrose asked carefully.

“It’s not what you think, but no, I didn’t come home. I _was_ with Ethel, but nothing happened. Nothing big, anyway.”

“But you caught up to her after the party?”

“Yeah. Just wanted to make sure she got home okay.”

“Good,” Ambrose admitted. “I was worried about her. She had a lot to drink. I was hoping she wasn’t gonna hook up with that Stan guy. He wasn’t the worst, but…”

“He’s a tool,” Moose finished for him.

“Eh. Yeah. I think that’s it. That’s a good way of putting it. ‘Tool’ fits.”

“But she got home?”

“Yeah. He walked her home, so I didn’t have to punch his teeth in.”

“Uh, Moose. That’s not how we deal with our feelings.”

“I know,” Moose told him, continuing to toss the ball in an unbroken rhythm.

“That’s how we get hauled off by campus security.”

“I know.”

“Okay. And how we get expelled?”

“I know that.”

“Okay. Just checking.” Ambrose sat down at his desk and powered on his laptop. “So, what next? Are you two a thing?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Are you gonna do anything about it?”

“Dude, I don’t _know_ yet.”

“Couldn’t hurt to figure that out.”

“Yeah, well.”

“No. Figure it out. She likes you, right?”

Moose fumbled his next catch, and the ball thunked him in the forehead, making him curse. Ambrose snickered. “Nice.”

“Sure. Laugh at my pain.”

“Ask her out. Chat her up. See where things go.”

“I don’t want her to think… I don’t want it to get weird.”

“What’s weird about a cute girl wanting to hang out with you? One that you get to see in her birthday suit already, anyway?”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Moose scolded gently.

“Sorry. I’m not talking smack, man. I’m jealous. She looked _nice_ in that dress. Almost makes me want to take Life Art next semester…”

His voice broke off into a laugh when Moose winged the baseball at his head. He ducked successfully. “I’m just sayin’.”

“Asshole.” But Moose was smirking. Yeah. Okay. 

Asking Ethel out wasn’t a bad idea at all.

*

Melody was fiddling with her nails, applying a sparkly silver top coat and some little decals when Ethel came back to their room. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

“Moose stopped by a little bit ago.”

Ethel’s cheeks flamed. “Really?”

“He sure did,” Melody sang. “He was all kinds of disappointed that he missed you.”

“God,” Ethel groaned. She flopped onto her cot and tipped over onto her back, exaggerating torture. “Ugh. Why, Lord? Why is everything so jacked up?”

“What’s the matter?”

“I asked my professor to switch me into a different class so I wouldn’t have to run into Stan anymore,” Ethel said. “But he dropped the class, anyway.”

“It won’t be that bad if you run into him again, anyway. Bet he’s already forgotten about trying to pick up on you by now, to be honest. Guys like Stan move on pretty quickly,” Melody pointed out. Ethel remembered dimly how he’d told her about being on the rebound from his ex, anyway, after he’d kissed her. Melody’s claim might not be too far off the mark.

“Yeah. Bet you’re right.”

“Oh, I know I am.” Melody sounded confident, and Ethel admitted to herself that boys were more Melody’s area of expertise than hers. Ethel would pummel anyone who called her roommate slow, because there were just certain things that she _knew_.

“So, Moose stopped by.”

“He left you something.”

“What was it?”

“Check out your desk.” Ethel sat up and spied the small white envelope with her first initial scrawled on the front. “Oh. Hey.”

“Open it!” Melody told her eagerly, waving her on with one manicured hand. Ethel fumbled with the seal, eventually ripping it open. She reached in and pulled out a small, folded scrap of paper and two tickets.

“Star Trek?”

“He’s taking you to see it?” Melody giggled. “That’s cute. Do you even like that?”

“I love Star Trek!”

“Awesome!”

“I know. Wow…” Ethel’s voice trailed off as she opened the note.

_Hope you don’t mind the late showing. The lines are shorter and we can park easier. If you wanna go. – M._

“He’s so funny. This is so cute.”

“He’s such a teddy bear,” Melody told her. “But, Ethel… oh, my God. He snores so _loud_. Listening to the two of you was like dueling buzzsaws.”

“Oh, shut UP.” Ethel took umbrage, sticking out her tongue. But she hugged the tickets and note to her chest. 

Okay. 

_Okay_.


End file.
